


my heart lay waiting

by green_tea31



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Major Character Injury, Mutual Pining, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Reunions, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2019-10-30 14:40:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 28,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17830478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/green_tea31/pseuds/green_tea31
Summary: The thing about Kovacs though; the thing that is different from the last time Jack hunted him.This time, he hunts them back.Almost two years into their task force Patrick Carmichael, their head analyst sent by MI6, gets a videotape from an anonymous source showing his sister walking across the street in front of her daughter’s school. When the car hits her body, Carmichael’s scream is a chilling thing.(The hunt for Tiberius Kovacs is as difficult as Jack expected. When things take a personal turn and a member of team Phoenix is caught in the crossfire, it's up to the family Jack left behind to make sure he still has a home to come home to after the dust has settled.)(Chapter Nine: Jack's task force closes in on their target and there's a reunion - yes, that one.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to get this idea out before it's jossed by canon. Fair warning, I call this fic "let there be angst" in my head. Definitely a reunion fic, though.  
> Inspired by two things: First, the ridiculous habit of the writers to just forget about serious injuries of the characters. I mean, come on, three days to get over a gunshot wound? The writing on this show has been kind of shoddy from the beginning but that's just lazy. Second, an episode of one of my favourite tv shows of all time, Profilage. I won't say anything more because that would spoil the next chapter.
> 
> Also, I care about the show and the characters too much to leave them to the mercy of the writers, so from now on Mac shall have a grumpy older sister called Desi and a less grumpy older sister called Sam. 
> 
> As always, self-betaed, all mistakes are my own.
> 
> Title from "Braw burn the bridges" by the Tannahill Weavers. It's a song about leaving loved ones on a distant shore. Go check it out and tell me it didn't make you cry thinking about Mac and Jack.

Desi is running down a hallway, looking for her partner when half of the building blows up. The force of the explosion throws her into a wall and only years of experience and her own innate stubbornness keep her from losing consciousness.

She’s pretty sure she knows where Mac is, though.

Also, if they survive this she’s going to kill him.

“Desi!” There he is, running towards her with a manic look in his eyes. They talked about this, Desi thinks, he needs to stay in contact if he doesn’t want her to die of a heart attack before she’s forty. At the beginning of their acquaintance she briefly considered trying to condition him into taking better care of himself but quickly had to discover that he was just too damn smart to be caught off guard again.

She got him the first time but that was because he didn’t actually know they were playing.

Desi will never admit it but she’s actually having fun. So far she managed to follow him around for three hours without him noticing, stole his car – twice, and broke into his house again, this time when he wasn’t in the shower. She still thinks that was an effective strategy to get the measure of him, though she might have misjudged the extent of his trust issues. Thankfully, they managed to move past it. Mac, in turn, found three of her aliases within the first month, discovered her favorite ice cream flavor (the real one, not the one she tells people is her favorite) and actually found the apartment she lives in now. Desi has two decoy places – yes, she might be slightly paranoid, what’s your point?

She never wanted a little brother but suspects that Jack Dalton might have inadvertently given her one anyway, the fucker. Desi’s gotten attached and she suspects that, when Jack comes back, he might end up regretting ever having introduced her to Mac.

Maybe Jack will consider shared custody?

For now she contents herself with glaring at Mac before running after him towards the exit. They make it just in time – the rest of the building going up in flames as soon as they clear out.

“I managed to contact Matty. Exfil is five minutes out,” Mac tells her, still breathless and so obviously on an adrenaline high, it reminds her why she was glaring at him in the first place.

“You absolute fucker!” Desi yells and yes, she swears like a sailor when she’s angry and she’s damn proud of it. “What the hell were you thinking? I told you we need to stay in contact on missions or I won’t be able to do my job, Mac.”

“I needed the earpiece or I wouldn’t have been able to light the fuse, Desi.” She’s put him on the defensive but the bastard made her _care_ about him so he damn well better listen.

“I told you I was tired of burying friends when we first met and then you go and make me get attached and _I don’t want to have to bury you, too_. Can you understand that, Mac?” Desi knows she’s slightly unreasonable because Mac is just doing his job. If he’d found another way, he wouldn’t have used his earpiece but…

“Desi, look…” he sounds frustrated and, despite herself, Desi’s heart goes out to him. “I know all of that but…how about I make you a promise?” He asks and looks at her with those big blue puppy dog eyes that Jack definitely _hadn’t_ warned her about.

“What promise?”

“The promise that, no matter what, I will do everything I can to stay alive. You know I can’t always promise that I’ll stay in contact, or that I’ll get out safely. Hell, we both know I can’t _actually_ promise you to stay alive but I _can_ promise that I will do everything in my power to do so,” Mac says and Desi gets the feeling that this is the kind of promise that he _will_ do everything he can to keep.

And if she’s learned anything over the last few years, it’s that Angus MacGyver can do a _lot_.

“Everything you can?”

“Promise.”

“You’ll stop prioritizing the mission over your safety?”

“If it doesn’t endanger innocents, yes.” Fair enough, she’d do the same.

“And you’ll finally get a decent security system at your house?”

“Nice try.” He grins at her and Desi grins back. Yeah, she can live with that.  

…

It’s late by the time they call it a day and all Jack wants to do is go to bed and sleep for a year. He’s tired, sore and _sick_ of running in circles, but Tiberius Kovacs is proving to be as elusive as he’d been the first time Jack had been after him. They’ve worked their way through his contacts, his enemies, his financial records and even dug up every lover he’s had in the past twenty years but nothing gets them closer to the man at the top.

The worst thing is…Jack hasn’t been home in nearly a year. At the beginning, they managed to take regular breaks, Jack went home twice in the first year, but then things seemed to spiral out of control. He gets regular updates from home, talks to Mac at least once a week and makes sure to stay in contact with the rest of the team, but over the last twelve months there just seemed to be no end to their hunt; no moment where they could reasonably stop and take a breath. Every minute they’re off his trail is a minute Kovacs has to get a step ahead.

Jack just wants to go _home_.   

…

Oversight is in L.A. and Desi is looking for Mac before his father finds him. She doesn’t like the man. She didn’t like him when they were first introduced and she likes him even less now that she knows what he did to Mac.

When Jack called in his favour, Desi had expected to be a glorified babysitter until she’d discovered that Mac didn’t need a bodyguard nearly as much as he needed someone to be in his corner. Mac was entirely too ready to please everyone and lose sight of himself in the process for it to be healthy. She wondered how no one on the team had actually noticed what kind of damage his father abandoning him had done to Mac and then realised that her partner was just that good at hiding it.

Sometimes an outsider really does see more than the people who are too close to the situation.

She finds Mac and Bozer in the lab, working on Sparky.

“Hey, Desi. Everything alright? You look kind of spooked.” Mac looks at her through those weirdly creepy goggles and she’ll never admit that she thinks he looks kind of adorable wearing them.

“Fair warning, Mac. Oversight is here. Thought you might want to clear out before he finds you.”

Mac grimaces and pulls off the goggles. “Yeah, thanks for the warning. I don’t want to hide from him but after that last mission…”

She knows what he’s talking about and grits her teeth, then consciously relaxes her jaw because last time her dentist nearly yelled at her about the state of her molars and why a high stress job is no excuse for bad habits. Oversight is a manipulative bastard and no matter how often Matty assures them that James MacGyver loves his son, Desi won’t be convinced until he actually _shows_ it.

“What are you actually gonna do with the rest of the day, Mac. I don’t think you left work on time in _months_ ,” Bozer asks, grinning while Mac hangs up his lab coat and puts away the rest of his equipment.

“It’s a nice day out. I thought we could hit the waves, get a pizza after,” Desi says and Mac smiles at her. A few months into working together she discovered that the boy genius didn’t just own a board because it goes well with the decoration but knew how to use it and use it well.

_I don’t like driving and I try to be as environmentally conscious as I can, why do you think I own a Jeep if not for transporting heavy things – like a surfboard?”_

_“No idea. The day I start understanding how your brain works is the day I hang up my job and retire to Iceland.”_

So now they try to hit the waves at least once a week when they’re not on missions because it’s nice and relaxing and it’s done more for their partnership than every talk they’ve had so far. Desi even listened, incredulously, as Mac told her how he taught Jack the basics of it, though it was more that he taught Jack how not to fall off the board. Jack Dalton was too much of a Texan boy to ever be comfortable out on the water.

Six months ago, when it had become clear that Jack probably wouldn’t make it home for another six months _at least,_ she’d listened as he haltingly told her that Jack had still nearly always accompanied him to the beach, a silent watcher as Mac tried to exercise his demons out on the waves. Their shared time surfing had become quietly precious to her then.

Now, Mac grabs his bag and throws Desi the keys and they clear out before Oversight descends on the lab. Desi looks forward to spending an evening at the beach. It’s Friday – they can afford to take their time.

…

The thing about Kovacs though; the thing that is different from the last time Jack hunted him.

_This time he hunts them back._

Almost two years into their task force Patrick Carmichael, their head analyst sent by MI6, gets a videotape from an anonymous source showing his sister walking across the street in front of her daughter’s school. When the car hits her body, Carmichael’s scream is a chilling thing.

Things start to move rapidly after that.

Every member of the task force has loved ones; friends and family that are vulnerable. Jack sends a couple of guys to watch his sister’s place and all over the world spouses, children, parents, and siblings are taken into protective custody.

Jack takes comfort in the knowledge that the team in L.A. is _safe_ , connected to Jack only by the vaguest thread because sometimes working for a covert agency does have benefits. Who would connect Jack Dalton, bathroom tiles salesman, to the Phoenix Foundation? He still sends a warning to Matty, though. Better safe than sorry.

_The warning comes too late._

It takes two days for the next tape to arrive.

This time it’s addressed to Jack.

_It’s Mac._

…

Jack is alone watching the tape. When Mac’s red Jeep appears on the screen Jack’s heart freezes into a cold hard lump of ice. He watches the next few minutes disconnected from himself. Mac walks into the picture.

_The last thing Jack will ever see of his partner (the man he loves) is his death through a grainy video feed._

Mac gets into the car and for a second nothing happens.

Jack breathes in; it sounds like a sob.

Suddenly the Jeep’s door opens again and Mac all but throws himself out of the car, managing to run a few steps until…

The Jeep blows up and the feed cuts off. All that’s left is a screen as black as the abyss left in Jack’s heart.

…

“God damnit Matilda, take the fuckin’ call.” Jack is pacing up and down the hall trying to reach the Phoenix director. All he can think is that _Mac managed to get out of the car_. There might be a tiny, miniscule chance that the kid is still alive and Jack needs to find out _yesterday_.

If Mac’s dead, Jack doesn’t know what he’s going to do. He does know that it’s going to end up with Tiberious Kovacs dead, though. This time Jack will make very sure it stays that way.

“Webber?”

“Tell me he’s not dead, Matty!” Jack demands before she can say anything else.

_Please…_

“He’s not. It’s good to hear your voice Jack.” Matty hesitates for a moment and Jack dreads her next words because Mac might be alive but that explosion sure didn’t leave him unscathed.

“Just tell me, Matty.”

“Jack…he’s comatose. He managed to get out of the car but was still caught in the explosion. Jack, am I right in assuming that this has something to do with your hunt for Kovacs? I got your warning but only after the explosion.” Matty asks and Jack takes a deep breath. He wants to ask her why they didn’t immediately call him but suspects he already knows the answer.

They wanted to wait until it was clear if Mac would survive.

But people wake up from being comatose all the time, don’t they?

 _Please_ …

“Kovacs turned the tables on us, Matty. One of my analysts got a tape where he had to watch while his sister was hit by a fuckin’ car. She didn’t make it. I thought you guys were safe. There’s almost nothin’ connecting me to the Phoenix.” Jack tells her while mentally rearranging his schedule so he can take a few days off.

So he can fly to L.A. to be there for Mac, to see him, to make sure the kid is alive.

“I know Jack, but someone must have made that connection. I’m having a team of analysts compile every piece of evidence we have into one file that we’ll send to the task force. Jack, make sure you get the goddamn son of a bitch, you hear me?” Matty sounds close to tears and Jack is almost crying himself.

_Mac wasn’t supposed to be involved in this at all and now Jack might lose him to that bastard._

"Listen, Matty. I’m gonna catch the next plane to L.A. Maybe I can catch a ride in the back of a Herky Bird…"

“Jack!” Matty’s voice stops him cold. “You _can’t_.”

“The hell are you talkin’ about, Matilda. Of course I can. I’m not gonna be able to stay for long but I want to see Mac with my own two eyes, to make sure he’s gonna be alright.” He’s angry now. Jack might have left but that doesn’t mean that taking care of Mac isn’t still ultimately _his_ job.

“I _mean_ that even I don’t know where he is right now. _Think_ , Jack. Someone managed to connect you to us, connect you to _Mac_. The explosion didn’t happen at his house, Jack. It happened right here, in front of the Phoenix.”

“You think the Phoenix’s been compromised.”

If that’s true…

“No, Jack. I’m _sure_ the Phoenix’s been compromised. James whisked Mac away as soon as he was stable enough to be transported. He’s been officially declared dead. The team, Oversight, and now you, are the only ones who know he’s not. It’s the only way to keep him safe and to give us the space to hunt down the mole. I know you want to see him Jack, but you need to keep your head in the game and focus on your target. I promise I’ll contact you as soon as Mac’s condition changes.”

The worst thing is – she’s right. The best thing he can do for Mac now is to stay exactly where he is and hunt the bastard down. He’ll have to trust the people at home, _his family_ , to take care of the rest and trust that Mac is enough of a fighter to get through this.

_People wake up from comas all the time, don’t they?_

_Please…_

 

 

  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry?


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matty seeks help from an old friend, Desi makes a decision and Mac is lost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please don't get used to my posting schedule of late - I have two weeks off and no social life. After that it's back to university life and writing is going to have to take a backseat again.  
> For now, enjoy chapter two. No Jack this time, we'll check in with him either in chapter three or four.

Sam doesn’t start worrying the moment Mac misses their monthly call. He’s done that before, missions are nothing if not unpredictable, but he’s always managed to send her a message telling her when he’ll be available again and by the time three days have passed without a word, she resolves to call him as soon as possible.

Life on a ranch, however, is unpredictable as well and so she spends the next few days worrying about an injured gelding and helping their newest mare give birth to her foal. By the time the foal is born and already running around like he hadn’t nearly died just a few hours earlier, Sam feels tired enough to sleep for a week. She bids goodbye to the vet, returns to her sister’s ranch house tired, sore, and covered in blood and finds Matilda Webber waiting for her in the living room.

“Matty.”

“Hello Sam. I need your help.”

Sam doesn’t really want to know why her former boss is here because she has the sneaking suspicion it has something to do with Mac’s radio silence and that can’t be good. Still, she was pretty clear about leaving that life behind, so for Matilda Webber to fly out all the way to Australia…

“How bad is it?” Sam asks, knowing that she’ll probably be in L.A. this time tomorrow. Not because she owes Mac or the team, she does, but because her time with them was the closest she ever felt to having a family aside from her own.

“It’s bad. A week ago, Mac was nearly killed when someone tried to blow up his Jeep with him still in it. He managed to get out before the explosion but was caught in the blast, now he’s in a coma. Given that the explosion happened right in front of the Phoenix there’s a pretty good chance we’ve got a mole hiding in the ranks.” Matty says and Sam closes her eyes.

 _Coma_ …

“You know I said goodbye to this life years ago.” Sam tells her but they both already know that she doesn’t really mean it.

“I need you on this, Sam. I need someone I can trust who is also really good at ferreting out rats and that list has recently grown very, very short.”

“What about Mac’s partner. Jack trusts her, so I would think that you do, too.” Sam hasn’t had much contact with Desiree Nguyen but from what Mac has told her, she’s become the sort of overprotective older sister that Mac never knew he wanted.

“Right now, Oversight is arranging Mac’s transport to an undisclosed location, one that even I won’t be informed about. I suspect that Desi will find herself with a very important choice to make and that that choice will be to go with Mac. Besides, her speciality is to be the muscle in the field. I need someone with a more…delicate approach.”

And that’s the problem, isn’t it? The “delicate approach” is the kind of work that always used to leave Sam disgusted with herself afterwards, even if she _is_ very good at it. The Phoenix Foundation, thankfully, has a very different set of morals compared to her previous employers but, with what’s at stake this time, Sam isn’t entirely sure that she won’t be tempted to fall back into the mindset she thought she’d left behind when she joined Mac’s team.   

“Mandy?” Her sister’s voice drags her back to the here and now and Sam feels the kind of dissociation she hasn’t felt in a while. She’d buried ‘Mandy’ so long ago that she still tends to think of herself as Sam first and, while she’s gotten used to hearing her birth name again, it’s jarring to hear it now with someone who has only ever known her as Samantha Cage standing three feet away from her.

“Who’s your guest?” Her sister asks, smiling without suspicion and that’s just another example of how far Sam’s moved away from the simpler world she grew up in. She will never be able to greet an unexpected guest without suspicion ever again.

“This is Matilda Webber. She’s the director of the think tank I was working with in L.A. when I was shot in that robbery. Matty, this is my sister, Elisabeth.” Sam says and watches silently as her two lives collide. Her sister doesn't know what Sam used to do for a living and if she has anything to say about it, Liz will never find out.

“It’s nice to meet you.” Liz says, confused. “Not to be rude, but what are you doing here, exactly? People normally don’t just come out to our farm to say hello and Mandy didn’t mention that she was expecting anyone.” Sam smiles at that because her sister might be unaware of what she used to do but Liz still has the overprotective instincts of older siblings everywhere. After Sam had been shot, Liz had hovered around her for weeks before letting Sam go off anywhere on her own again.

“Matty’s here to ask for a favour. One of my former co-workers had an accident and they need someone to temporarily fill in for him. He was working with some sensitive material. It’s Mac. Remember, I told you about him.” Sam answers for Matty and Liz’s eyes grow wide.

“Wait, isn’t he the guy you’re still in contact with? The one who suggested how to fix the generator last month?”

“Yeah, that’s him. I’ll be leaving with Matty this afternoon – after I take a shower.” Sam says and turns back to her former boss. “The sooner we get started, the better.”

…

“You’d think that after five days, they would tell us anything _useful_.” Bozer grumbles into the room. It’s empty except for Desi, Leanna and him – just as it has been the last few days ever since his best friend had been nearly killed by a car bomb. They’re not in any kind of official hospital and Bozer wonders, not for the first time, just who the hell he’s working for because he’s pretty sure this hyper modern not-really-a-hospital with its stone walls and its World War II charm and its very qualified doctors hadn’t actually existed a week ago.

Leanna puts a hand over his and smiles gently. “You know that his injuries were pretty severe. The best they can tell us is that Mac is still alive and for now it looks like he’s going to stay that way.”

“He’s lucky to be alive at all.” Desi injects from her seat next to the window and Bozer tells himself that she doesn’t mean to be rude – she cares – it’s just her defence mechanism. Over the last two years Bozer has watched as his best friend and the woman Jack trusts with Mac’s life have slowly found the kind of common ground that only two people as used to loss as Mac and Desi can ever be comfortable with. The important thing is, she loves Mac, too and her anger is not directed at Mac or the rest of the team but at the fact that it _happened_.

And honestly, they’re all feeling the strain after the last few days. This morning, Bozer yelled at a barista because his name was spelled wrong and then he spent nearly twenty minutes in a bathroom crying his eyes out.

If they could just find out anything, anything at all, that would probably do wonders for everyone, but it’s been the same thing over and over again.

Mac is alive.

He’s comatose.

They don’t know if or when he’ll wake up.

“Bozer, Desi.” Leanna says and stands up. Bozer follows when he sees that James MacGyver is marching down the hallway to the waiting room. Only Desi stays seated and Bozer is reminded that she doesn’t really like Mac’s dad, never has. It’s one of the reasons why _he_ trusts her with Mac. Bozer himself has never really been able to stand up to Oversight, because he’s still only fifty percent sure that he actually belongs at the Phoenix Foundation – and that’s on a good day. Desi, however, never had those reservations and she’s taken to shielding Mac from his dad for a good long while now.

Oversight strides into the room like he owns it and, for all that Bozer knows, he actually might.

“I’ve arranged my son’s transport to an undisclosed location. We’re leaving this evening. As long as the traitor hasn’t been found, it’s safer for him if he’s officially declared dead,” James says, looking much more tired and haggard than Bozer has ever seen him and that includes the time Mac and Jack had gotten him back from Mexico after he’d been shot.

“Wait. Is he stable enough to be transported?” Leanna asks the question on Bozer’s mind and Mac’s dad turns to her, a frown on his face.

“The people working on him are very good. It’s a risk but…this location is too exposed. I can’t guarantee his safety as long as he stays in L.A.”

“Do we know who was behind this?” Desi asks, getting up from her seat at the window. “I don’t mean the mole but who is ultimately responsible.” There’s a look in her eyes that Bozer has seen before. The last time it was on Jack’s face when Murdoc had Mac and that alone scares him into trying to intervene, to ease the tension in the room.

“We can go with him, right?” Bozer asks and James turns back to him as if he’s forgotten that Bozer is in the room at all.

“No. His location has to remain secret. The people in this room and Matty are going to be the only ones who know that he survived.” He turns back to Desi. “Dalton will be told as well. To answer your question, two hours after the explosion, Matty received a message from Dalton, warning her that Tiberius Kovacs has started going after relatives and spouses of the task force members. He shouldn’t have been able to connect Dalton to us, though.”

“That’s why you think there’s a traitor at the Phoenix.” Leanna says suddenly.

Oversight nods. “Exactly. Miss Davis is currently making her way through the surveillance footage from the day of the explosion. I’d like you all to go and join her. We need as many trustworthy eyes on this as possible and I don’t think there’s one person in this room who would willingly betray my son.”

They’ll find out later that the first thing Oversight had Riley do, was clear all of them. Willingly doesn’t eliminate the possibility that one of them could have acted under duress or without knowing at all.   

“Sir, I’d like to ask permission to go with Mac.” Desi says and straightens up as if saluting a commanding officer.

“Agent, I told you why that won’t be possible.”

“With all due respect, Sir.” She begins and takes a deep breath. “My primary job on this team is protection. Do I want to hunt down the bastard responsible for this? Of course I do but the kind of subtle work that is going to be necessary for this isn’t exactly my speciality. I suspect that Director Webber left L.A. yesterday to get someone who does exactly this kind of work and does it well.”

She looks over to Leanna and Bozer and smiles sadly. “If they can trust me to keep Mac safe then I can trust them to find the son of a bitch who betrayed us…Sir.”

Bozer is nearly floored by her statement. He knows, on an intellectual level that Desi has come to care for the rest of the team in her own way, but that doesn’t mean it has been easy until now. He definitely didn’t expect to receive this kind of trust from her.

Oversight seems to consider her words if the frown on his face is any indication.

“Also, your son would probably have a much easier time if he has a familiar face with him when he wakes up.” Leanna adds.

“Fine. You’re aware that this might take months, if not years, Agent Nguyen? You’re essentially giving up your life here for an indefinite amount of time if you go with my son.” James asks Desi but she just smiles serenely, secure in the knowledge that she has won this argument.

Bozer breathes a sigh of relief – Mac won’t be alone.

“I’m aware of that, Sir. It won’t be the first time.”

“Very well. We leave this evening. I suggest that you take care of whatever you need to take care of in the city and prepare for a longer absence.” James turns to Bozer and Leanna. “I’ll give you a few minutes to say goodbye to the rest of your teammates but then you need to return to the Phoenix. Agent Davis will brief you on what we have so far.” He looks at each of them one more time before he leaves and Bozer realises that James MacGyver doesn’t just look tired, he looks like he’s aged ten years in the space of a week.

It _is_ his son fighting for his life.

…

Mac is alone in the house, trying to remember what he was doing because he has the strange feeling that he’s forgotten something important.

“Hey, Mac. Shouldn’t you be in the hospital?” Bozer asks with a grin while walking into the living room.

 “What are you talking about, what hospital?” Mac asks and doesn’t understand the sad look he receives in return.

“Come on, man. The explosion? Don’t you remember? Bozer takes a step closer and there’s something at the edge of his thoughts, something that Mac can’t quite grasp without risking to lose even more.

“I guess…it wasn’t as bad as they thought?” He tries but Bozer still has that look in his eyes that Mac now realises is pity. That’s wrong, Mac thinks, because Bozer has been furious with him before, he’s envied Mac, he’s been happy for Mac and he’s been sympathetic but Bozer has never once pitied him.

 “It’s more complicated than that, hoss.” Mac turns to the door quickly enough that he feels a faint onset of vertigo. _Jack’s_ standing there, a grin on his face and he had no idea how much he missed seeing that grin until now.

 “Jack, what are you doing here?” He asks because no matter how glad Mac is to see him, Jack hasn’t been anywhere close to L.A. and Mac in nearly a year.

“What? Not happy to see me partner?” Jack asks while sauntering into the room and stops just inches away from Mac. There’s a smile on his face that’s too sad to be true and that’s not right. Jack should never be this sad, Mac thinks.

“It’s not that, Jack. But…why didn’t you tell me you were coming?” He asks and Jack looks at him intently as if there’s something that Mac has forgotten, something important that he needs to remember.

“Come on, Mac. Think. You know what I’m talking about. That big brain of yours might be workin’ slower than usual right now but even with half a brain you’re still miles ahead of the rest of us.”

And that’s…

_He knows something’s wrong the moment he gets into the car…fuck, he needs to get out…the doors are locked…he’s out of time…_

_Slower…_

He looks at Bozer.

_He sees Desi through the windshield, looking at him questioningly and whatever she sees on his face makes her run towards the car…he can’t let her…he manages to get the door unlocked…_

“The explosion…I’m…I’m not alright, am I?” Mac asks and if he’s right, if his suspicions are correct, then he’s essentially just asking himself, but Bozer shakes his head anyway.

“No, Mac. You’re not.” While he’s talking, Bozer, or what Mac slowly realises is nothing more than Mac’s brain pretending to be Bozer, fades before his eyes.

Mac turns back to the man who isn’t really Jack, trying to think logical – trying not to _panic_.

“Jack? I think I’m lost.” But Jack doesn’t answer, he just continues to look at Mac and vanishes while still smiling that strange, sad smile.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team comes together and Mac has an unexpected visitor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Having now watched 3.16 I'd like to say that this was in no way meant to be prophetic and I doubt that the situation on the show will be resolved the same way as the one in this fic.  
> Warning for handwavy medical science of dubious origin.  
> Self-betaed as always. All mistakes are my own.

“This isn’t the way to the Phoenix,” Bozer tells their driver and exchanges a look with Leanna. He’s just about had it with the surprises today and the last thing they need is another unexpected change in schedule.

“No sir, it isn’t,” their driver says and continues look stoically ahead.

“He’s well trained at least,” Leanna whispers almost silently and Bozer fights the sudden urge to start laughing. Then, proving that he’s at least slightly sympathetic to their plight, the driver sighs audibly and continues. “The director ordered the relocation of all essential personnel to the Foundation’s secondary location.”

“The Phoenix has a secondary location?” Leanna asks and Bozer would like the answer to that, too. Their driver, however, doesn’t answer but the car begins to slow down, coming to a halt next to a playground.

“Please exit the car now.” The driver turns around. “My orders were to bring you here and nothing more.”

Bozer looks out of the window and has no idea where he is. “Wait, I thought you had to bring us to the secondary location?” He asks, confused.

“I’m not essential personnel. You’re on your own from here on. Please leave the car now, you’re not the only people I have to get somewhere today.” The driver sounds exasperated now, like he can’t quite believe that morons like them are deemed ‘essential’ to the Phoenix and he’s not.

“Let’s just get out,” Leanna mutters and opens the door. Bozer follows her out because he doesn’t have any better ideas and the car leaves as soon as they’re standing next to it.  

“Well…that was weird,” Bozer says and turns to Leanna. “Wasn’t that weird?” Before Leanna can answer, a different car stops right in front of them, window rolling down, and Riley smiling grimly from the driver’s seat.

“Someone called for an Uber?”

…

“Where are we?” Leanna asks as they step out of the car and into a nondescript parking garage that could double for just about any parking garage in the greater L.A. area.

Riley leads them to an elevator and taps a panel on the wall, revealing an iris scanner that belongs to the sophisticated security system that Riley’s been setting up over the last few days. She regrets not having been able to spend more time with Mac, but Riley likes to think that, if he was here right now, he would tell her to concentrate on making sure they have a place to work from once they start hunting the people responsible for his injuries.

“It’s the Phoenix Foundation’s secondary location.” They step into an elevator that looks a lot more modern than the outside of the building did.

Bozer, of course, isn’t happy with that answer and neither is Leanna. To be fair, Riley pretty much had the same reaction when Matty had shown her the building shortly after the explosion.

“That’s what the driver told us Riley, but what _is_ it?” Bozer asks just as the elevator comes to a halt.

She leads them into the building and past the first and second security checks until they come to the heart of the operation.

She turns to her teammates and friends – family really. “A few of us jokingly call it APO…after that TV show with Jennifer Garner? It means authorized personnel only. That’s basically what we are.” Riley turns back to the room.

They’re standing on the top of a staircase leading down into an open space command room similar to the one at headquarters, a row of analysts already at their work stations.

“Yeah…I know the show.” Bozer says, distractedly, while Riley leads them down the stairs. They stop in front of a screen that isn’t just twice the size of the one they have in the War Room but also far more advanced.

“The people who know about this place were cleared of any suspicion over the last few days. We aren’t many. It’s just us, the guys behind us, Oversight, Matty and whoever Matty is going to bring back with her.”

“Who set this up…and _when_?” Leanna asks, astonishment in her voice and Riley swallows heavily before answering because finding out the information she’s about to tell these two had hit her right where it hurt.”

“Mac and Jack did…after Thornton. There was a short time between Thornton leaving and Matty coming in when Jack was technically acting director. He and Mac did something very clever with some of our black ops funds and, by the end, they had enough to buy this place and turn it into the kind of command centre we’d need if we were ever compromised again but had no idea how – like now.”

Leanna frowns. “Isn’t that kind of embezzling Phoenix money, though?” She asks, proving that she and Riley often do think alike because Riley had asked Matty the exact same question just a few days earlier.

“Apparently the rules for spies are slightly different. The money never actually existed except in the accounts that the Phoenix owns…which also don’t exist because neither do we. It has to do with a lot of different accounts in a lot of different countries and I could explain it to you in detail but I don’t really think you want me to do that.” Riley tells them and suppresses a smile at the look on Bozer’s face.

Riley might be good at this kind of thing, she likes to play follow the money, but most other people do not. She really wants to have a chat with Mac and Jack though because what they did to those funds was pure magic.

Correction, she’s going to have that chat because Mac will pull through this and they’re going to get Jack back even it’s the last thing Riley does.

Jack might have tried to keep them away from this as far as possible but Kovacs went after a member of her family and Riley is nothing if not protective of the people she loves.

“I took the liberty of grabbing your go-bags from the locker room when I left. They’re in your rooms down that corridor.” She motions towards a door in the back.

“Rooms?” Bozer asks while Leanna’s eyes grow wide. Riley makes her way past the analysts and leads them into the rest of the building.

“As long as we don’t know who betrayed us, we have to assume that our personal information is compromised, too. That means we’re staying here until we know more, because Kovacs went after the team to get to Jack once and we have no way of knowing if he’ll go after the rest of us, too.”

She leads them through the corridor and stops when they come to the end. There’s another, longer corridor to their right and a glass door to their left.

“Our rooms are down that way. You can have a look after I debriefed you.” Riley hesitates for a moment. “I…I wasn’t sure if you wanted to bunk together, so you have separate rooms for now but you can double up if you want – the beds are big enough.”

Bozer blushes at that and Leanna rolls her eyes. Riley is once again glad that she doesn’t really like fishing in the company pool – she avoids a lot of awkward situations that way.

“Come on, Matty and her guest should be waiting inside. They arrived about an hour before us.” Riley opens the glass door and lets Bozer and Leanna go in first, nearly running into them when they stop abruptly.

“Guys, what the…” She steps past her teammates and is greeted by a face she hasn’t seen in nearly three years.

“Hey guys,” Samantha Cage greets them with a guarded smile on her face. “Miss me?”

…

Matilda Webber watches with a heavy heart as the people she has come to consider her family greet Sam like a long lost member of that family. She knew that when Sam left it had hit them hard, not only because Murdoc had targeted one of their own but also because Samantha Cage had just managed to find her place in their little group.

She also knew that most of them had stayed in contact, but with how unpredictable their schedules often were, only Mac had actually kept up regular contact with Sam.

“Missed you? Are you kidding me?” Riley exclaims and rushes over to Sam, enveloping her in a hug. Bozer doesn’t greet her quite as enthusiastically but he has the biggest grin on his face that Matty can remember seeing on him in a while.

The last two years haven’t been kind to anyone on the team and Matty is determined to fix that because these people deserve so much more than what fate has dealt them until now.

Right now, Bozer is introducing Leanna and Sam and Matty hates to interrupt them but they’re on a tight schedule.

“Alright, people. Pay attention. Riley, if you would tell the rest of the team what we know so far?” Matty says and Riley nods, activating the screen that’s pretty much the twin to the one in the control room, only smaller.

The first thing that appears is a grainy image of Tiberius Kovacs which has an immediately sobering effect on the mood in the room.

“You all know who this guy is,” Riley begins, “We don’t know how Kovacs made the connection between Jack and the Phoenix because however they did it, it wasn’t electronically.”

“So, that’s why you’re sure there’s a mole. If they didn’t hack the system, they have to have someone on the inside,” Sam interrupts and Riley nods at her.

“Exactly. We’ve managed to clear a small group of analysts from any suspicion, aside from the team, but everyone else is still potentially guilty until proven innocent.”

“Isn’t it supposed to be the other way round?” Bozer asks and Matty shakes her head.

“Not in this line of work, it isn’t.” Matty moves to stand next to Riley. The image on screen changes to show the profile pictures of six Phoenix employees, two of which she recruited herself.

“Riley spent the last few days going through the security footage from the day of the explosion. Unfortunately, the camera overseeing the spot where Mac’s Jeep was parked malfunctioned during the hour leading up to it.”

“Do we suspect sabotage?” Leanna asks.

“We do indeed. What we also _do_ know is that the explosive device was likely planted immediately or at least not earlier than half an hour before Mac got into the car, because that’s the timeframe we don’t have any footage for. Using this information, Riley managed to reduce our pool of suspects to the six Phoenix employees you can see here based on their location during that time.” Matty nods towards the screen.

“Riley, Bozer, Leanna. You’re doing research. I want to know _everything_ about these six. I want to know where they spent the last week, what they had for lunch…find out their favorite color if you think it’s important. You can use every resource we have available here.”

Matty looks at Sam. “Sam and I will concentrate on their psychological profiles and eventually on interrogation once we have an idea where to start.”

She takes a deep breath and steels herself for the task ahead. Matty’s team, her family, looks at her with the resolve of people who have been through hell together and lived to tell the tale. She can do this – _they_ can do this.

Mac and Jack are counting on them.

…

Mac has spent the last hour, or what his brain tells him feels like an hour, testing out the limits of his imaginary house. He can walk around the living room and kitchen and go into his room but that’s it. Whenever he tries to leave the house he just…blacks out for an indefinite amount of time and starts again in the exact spot where he began.

Interestingly though, he can change his surroundings at will, or it would probably be more accurate to say that the space changes _with_ him.

Mac has yet to feel hunger or thirst but when he thought about a recent article about quantum theory he’d read, the magazine suddenly showed up on the kitchen counter, shocking the hell out of him.  

“Well, at least my imagination’s still working.” He grumbles into the empty room and gets another shock when someone answers.

“Yes, but the bad news is, you might never wake up again.” Patricia Thornton says while seemingly appearing out of nothing and that is someone Mac definitely didn’t expect his brain to think up.

“Don’t look at me like that, agent. I’m nothing more than an imaginary construct your brain thought might help you solve your problems.” Mac frowns at that because he can think of half a dozen people better suited for that task without straining himself.

“Of course you can. But you’re forgetting who brought you into this game to begin with, Mac. Most people think that Jack was the one who taught you what you know but we both know I had at least as much influence on that if not more,” Patty says and Mac thinks that her ability to read his mind should feel a lot weirder than it does. Of course, considering that she’s really a part of his mind, maybe it’s not that weird after all.

“You think my brain is turning to my former mentor because she was my guide when I first joined DXS. Jack was there, too. And _he_ didn’t betray me.”

Thornton smiles at him sadly. “Ah, but Jack left you, didn’t he? And no matter how much you insist that you’re okay with that, we both know that’s not the whole truth.”

Mac swallows. That’s not something he likes to think about and nothing he would ever admit out loud. But then, this Thornton is nothing more than Mac’s representation of her and if Mac can’t be honest with himself when he’s on the verge of dying, he should probably think about changing careers.

“Well, Mac. This time the situation doesn’t look good at all, does it? You’re likely comatose, I would be surprised if you scored higher than an eight on the Glasgow Coma Scale. There’s the distinct possibility of brain damage once you wake up – of course that’s only _if_ you wake up. And even if your brain is still intact at that point, the explosion was bad enough that it’s likely going to take months, if not years, for you to be cleared for field work.” She lists the possibilities without sympathy and Mac thinks that he knows why his brain chose _her_ of all people to help him rationalize this situation.

When he’d first started out at DXS, Thornton had been the one who recognized his weaknesses in the field and helped him, not quite to overcome them but to deal with them in a way that Jack would never have been able to. Jack had taught him a lot but he’d also been protective of Mac and, more often than not, gave into the urge to shield his partner from Mac’s own failures and because Jack was a good enough operative to recognize that, he’d left most of Mac’s initial training to Thornton.

His brain could have turned to Matty, but Mac is aware that she falls into the same category as Jack – something that had confused the hell out of him after her initial distrust of his methods until he’d realized that she’d been a part of his life for longer than even Jack had been.

So, Patricia Thornton it is.

“Assuming I actually manage to get back to a physical level where I’m ready for the field. Even if my brain is intact, that’s not the only long-term damage I have to worry about.”

“I can’t tell you that, Mac. I can only tell you what you already know.” Thornton says and turns around, walking over to the blackboard Mac hadn’t even noticed was in the room. “Your brain is working much slower than usual, which means you’re concentrating on what’s essential – the last thing your brain was actively engaged in.” She lets her fingers trail over the surface of the board, tracing equations that are just barely visible.  

Mac recognizes those equations and suspects they describe the bomb that had done its very best to kill him pretty accurately.

Thornton turns back to him. “What happened before the explosion, Mac?” She asks. Behind her, the board becomes blurry and Mac can’t keep looking at it because it hurts, so he closes his eyes, just for a second but that second is enough for the blackboard to change into a stack of cardboard boxes.

She steps closer. “You’re looking for something, something that your brain wants you to know. Find out what happened before the explosion and you’ll find out what that something is.” Mac frowns at her insistence and looks to the ground, trying to think of an appropriate answer. When he looks up again, Thornton is gone.

 

 

 


	4. Chapter 4: Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Interlude: Five conversations Jack has between then and now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm having a shitty week because of health reasons but managed to finish this anyway so yay me?  
> Does anyone know if it's Kovacs or Kovac? I've settled for Kovacs but I know some people use Kovac. Probably doesn't really matter anyway. Also, I know Desi told Mac that her friends call her Dez but that will get confusing very quickly, so Jack calls her Desi in this fic.  
> Self-betaed, all mistakes are my own.

_Mac_

In the beginning, it’s almost too easy.

Jack calls home once a week. Don’t get him wrong, seeing the people he left behind through a grainy video feed is not the same thing as being in one room but they make do. The calls are always long and there’s always time reserved for him to talk to Riley and then Mac alone, because those are the two people he’s hurt most by leaving – even if no one acknowledges it – and he _needs_ that connection.

Needs it to keep him sane because however bad the memories of the first hunt are, they hold no candle to the real deal and when Jack feels himself slipping back into the skin of the man he’d been twelve years ago, he needs the reminder that he’s left all of that behind once and can do so again.

Jack tells himself that he left the team safe – or as safe as they can be given their jobs and most days that’s enough. Desi will do her job. She might not like it much but she will keep them alive and relatively unharmed until Jack can go home.

The first time Jack talks to Mac after he left they barely mention Jack’s replacement, even though she’s been part of the team for a couple of missions now. Jack tries to test the waters by making a throwaway comment at the end of the call.

“And how’s my replacement working out, hoss?” He winces because he probably should have phrased that differently and Mac’s glare combined with the _do you really want me to answer that question_ raised eyebrow of his says it all.

“Let’s wait a few more weeks before we talk about that.”

“Work in progress then?” Jack guesses and thinks that Mac looks too weary for it to have been anything but a mild disaster.

“You can say that again.”

“Look, kid. She’s not the easiest person to get along with but give her time, alright? She’ll come around.”

Mac sighs and rubs a hand over his face. “I’m not so sure about that,” he almost whispers, just loud enough for Jack to hear.

“You don’t _have_ to like her, you know?” Jack tells him and Mac let’s out an annoyed huff.

It’s true. Jack wants Mac safe and that’s why he asked Desi to take over for him but he knows his partner. Mac doesn’t trust easily – never has – but he _will_ go out of his way to make the people close to him feel welcome. It’s an odd dichotomy in Mac’s personality that most people never realise is there at all and that Jack is pretty sure at least partly comes from Mac’s need to be useful to people for fear of being abandoned again.

It took Jack ages to understand it himself and even now it still surprises him how _kind_ Mac is to people he doesn’t really trust yet and yes, he blames Oversight for that particular part of Mac’s personality.

It might be one of the things Jack loves most about his partner but it’s also one of Mac’s more destructive personality traits. He’s watched people take advantage of Mac’s willingness to please too often and one of his greatest regrets will forever be the fact that he hadn’t noticed how badly Mac had been hit by his father’s deception.

They’d all kind of dropped the ball on that one and he and Mac just barely managed to get over the resulting cracks in their partnership before Jack was forced to leave and watch that fragile trust in his partner’s eyes shatter all over again.

He’s got a lot of damage control to do when he makes it back home.  

“I like her, Jack. That’s not the problem. It’s just…she doesn’t seem to like _me_ much and while I know I shouldn’t care about that…” Mac smiles sadly and Jack wants nothing more than to reach through the feed and hug him, shield him from the world, wants to tell Mac that everything’s going to be alright and, most importantly, that he’s sorry about how they left things.  

Jack thought Mac would be okay without him – he’d been okay in Nigeria after all – but forgot that Mac rarely shows his emotions in the blatantly obvious way that Jack does. Mac internalizes things. He rationalises his own feelings to an unhealthy degree and the one person who always made sure Mac occasionally dealt with these feelings left him to hunt a dangerous international terrorist without truly understanding how much Mac really depended on him.

…  

_Bozer_

“I’m just saying, Jack. She _broke_ Sparky.” Bozer almost whispers while glaring at him. It’s just Mac, Bozer and Jack this evening, connected via Mac’s laptop and Mac skipped out for a bit to take a phone call, leaving Bozer to rant at him about their new team member.

“She’s great and all and she keeps Mac safe but she’s _terrifying_. I keep expecting her to jump out of the next closet to test my field readiness any day now. Where the hell did you _find_ her?”

“Sorry, pal. That’s classified,” Jack answers, barely supressing a snicker.

“It’s just…Mac’s been distracted lately and I’m not entirely sure she’s gonna be able to keep him on track out in the field. Hell, Jack. Riley and I barely manage to keep him on track when we’re on a mission and we _know_ Mac.” Bozer looks serious now and Jack sighs heavily. It’s a concern he’s had as well but not something he really knows how to address.

“Look, Bozer. I promise you she’ll keep him focused…but he’s gonna need you for the emotional fallout. Desi isn’t a very…touchy feely kind of person. She’ll keep him focused but you two need to keep him with us. Can you do that for me?” Jack asks.

He made Mac promise to stay with the Phoenix when he left and while that may have been a shitty thing to do when Jack was the one leaving, Jack mainly did it to know that Mac had people watching his back while he was gone.

Mac is never going to be completely free from the world of spy vs spy, no matter how far he runs, and Jack feels better when he knows that there are people close by willing to lend a hand when the psychopath of the week rears his ugly head and does his very best to kill Mac.

Mac’s going to need more than that though if Jack wants to find his partner with his head in the right place when he returns and he’s counting on Bozer and Riley to provide the framework for that.

Bozer looks over his shoulder and Jack can see Mac coming back into the room.

“Yeah, promise, Jack. We can do that.”

Jack smiles. It’s a start.

…

_Matty_

“Hey, Boss-lady. How’s it going?” Jack smiles tiredly at the blurry form of Matilda Webber who scrutinizes him with all the suspicion of the master tactician she really is.

“You look like shit, Dalton.” Matty tells him bluntly and Jack can’t find it in him to deny that claim because he feels like it, too. He’s been awake going on 48 hours now without much chance of a break. They’d caught one of Kovacs’ lieutenants while he was busy selling “live cargo” somewhere in Asia – Jack hates human traffickers with a passion – and spent the past week following the guy's trail to a small village near the Chinese border, only to miss him by two hours.

All that had been left were the bodies of a group of underaged girls which had become too much of a burden for Kovacs' man to try to sell – Kovacs himself had never even been close to the location.

Another failed to op to add to Jack’s impressive collection of nightmares.

“I’ve sent your team the latest updates our analysts compiled. Most of it is old news but there are a few things that I think might be worth pursuing.” Matty taps something on the screen on her side and Jack watches as the glass walls turn foggy in the background.

“Now, Jack. How are you really? And I don’t want to hear any of your usual “I’m fine” crap, but the truth. Given your general appearance I’m guessing it isn’t going well?”

And isn’t that the fucking truth.

“I just don’t know, Matty. I thought the last time was bad, but it’s like Kovacs just _knows_ when we’re on to him. I’m having a couple of my people I trust look into it because at this time I won’t rule out that he’s managed to get his hands on our ops manual _somehow_ but…,” Jack trails off because the other possibility is one he doesn’t even want to contemplate.

“Did you consider that there might be a mole on the team?” Of course Matty would come to the same conclusion, Jack thinks bitterly. It’s not like her to miss the obvious after all.

“Yeah, that thought crossed my mind. Thing is…if we do I don’t know who to trust anymore and I’m not sure that’s a thing I can afford right now – not with how things are going.”

“Yes you do, Jack. You can trust _us_. I know you want to keep the team as far away from this as possible but we’ve talked about this in the beginning, Jack. I have a sizeable pool of analysts and nearly independent operatives who I’m all too willing to use – people I _have_ used in the past to get you the information you need.” She looks at him knowingly and Jack is reminded that Matilda Webber knows all of him – and that’s not something even Mac can say because Jack has tried very hard over the years to keep the monster beneath at bay and as far away from Mac as possible.

The monster under his skin, the killer he was _is again_ the man he has done his very best to leave behind in the sands of the Afghani desert.      

_It will take him years to understand that Mac has always seen all of him and still doesn’t look away, still loves Jack in a way that Jack will never be quite sure he is worthy of._

“Send me what you have Jack. We’ll take a look at it.”

…

_Desi_

“How difficult would it be to take out a hit on Oversight without anyone noticing?” Desi asks him before Jack’s even had a chance to say hello. The request for a call from her was a surprise because they don’t really keep up any kind of regular contact. Jack tried but Desi muttered something about his tendency to micromanage and how it would unnecessarily complicate her job.

Seems she managed to complicate it all on her own.

“Excuse me?” Jack asks disbelievingly because in all the years he’s known her, he never quite got the hang of figuring out when she’s kidding and when she’s being serious and Jack has the suspicious feeling that this time it’s the latter one.

“Murdoc would probably do it for free but he’s currently in prison so he's out. Do you know any good operators who are between jobs right now? I know Eliot’s left the business and god knows where Quinn is but there has to be someone looking for a payday.” She looks at him expectantly and Jack isn’t even sure where to start with this one.

“First of all, I asked you to keep Mac safe. I didn’t expect you to go all… _homicidal_ on his behalf. Also, I really hope you’re joking right know because you can’t kill James MacGyver, Desi – no matter how much you want to.”

“Well, _someone_ has to because you guys sure aren’t up for the job.” She smiles at him, grimly and yeah, Jack can see where she’s coming from.

Still…

“How did this come up anyway? I thought you were pretty neutral on the topic of Mac’s dad,” Jack asks because the one time they _had_ talked about James, Desi had told him she didn’t know the man well enough to have an opinion.

“After the last op Mac told me that the guy pretty much ran out on him when he was _ten_ and then had the audacity to blame his son for it. And don’t you people realise how manipulative he is? Mac shouldn’t be forced to work with his father, he should be in goddamn therapy to deal with the fact that almost everyone he’s ever loved either died on him too early or left him.” She glares at him and Jack understands that she includes him in that count which is a punch to the gut, because if there’s one thing he’s always been proud of it’s that he's not on the list of people that have left Mac behind.

Jack always promised himself that he wouldn’t abandon the kid, no matter what and isn’t that just prove that life just loves to fuck you over when you least expect it.

“Look, Desi… the problem with Oversight is that there’s no one on the team who can realistically stand up to him. Matty’s known James for longer than even Mac has at this point and that’s a kind of loyalty that you and I _know_ is more complex than it seems. Bozer still has trouble believing that he deserves to be on the team in the first place and Oversight hasn’t exactly been helpful with that. As for Riley…she looks at this situation through her experiences with Elwood and that’s not always helpful and I was too busy being butthurt by Mac leaving us for three months to see how badly his father really hurt him.”

“So you’re saying everyone fucked up and no one bothered to try to fix anything,” she states bluntly and why does Jack surround himself with women who can see through him this easily again?

Possibly because he’s hopeless at this.

Jack remembers the months Mac was gone and the way he’d felt and he’s tried to put it into words more than once but always fails. He knows he’s way too attached to the kid and Jack suspects that Mac might run in the other direction if he ever suspected just _how_ attached Jack has become, so Jack does everything possible to pretend he doesn’t love the kid as much as he does.

Even if that meant distancing himself from Mac in the months after Mac returned from Nigeria – something Jack now realises had been a mistake, one he isn’t entirely sure how to fix yet.

But Jack will – he’s promised himself that much.

“Fuck, Jack. Seriously?” Desi exclaims, pulling Jack from his thoughts and back to the here and now.

“I suspected the boy genius is a bit too attached to you but I never expected you to actually feel the same way,” she says and Jack fights the urge to panic because apparently he’s not as subtle as he likes to think he is if she reads him this easily.

“Oh for…I’ll keep him safe and as content as I can manage until you get back, but then you’re going to fix this shit or there’ll be consequences. Also, don’t tell me whatever you were going to tell me because I didn’t sign up to be anyone’s counsellor and you know I’m terrible at emotions anyways,” Desi tells him and Jack takes a relieved breath because apparently he’s off the hook for now.

“Thanks, Desi. I know you never expected to have to stay in L.A. this long and I owe you one after this is over,” Jack says and Desi smiles at him.

“Yeah, well. That boy of yours made me care, the bastard. Tell you what, you make it back in one piece and we’ll call it even.”

…

_Mac_

“I’m sorry, hoss, but I’m not gonna make it home in time for Halloween this year,” Jack says and watches with a heavy heart as Mac’s face falls, his smile turning into a disappointed frown.

“It’s…it’s alright Jack. Just make sure you stay safe, okay?” Mac looks down, too long bangs falling into his eyes.

Jack wants to reach out and touch Mac’s face, run his fingers through the messy blond hair and do something – anything – to bring Mac’s smile back but the kid is in L.A. and Jack’s in a classified location with a lot of rain and way too many mosquitos.

“Hey…hey, look at me, Mac. I know this is a shitty deal but I think I can make it for Christmas this year. Just think of me when you’re being all spooky – you know how much I love Halloween.” Jack tries to lighten the mood and mentally pats himself on the shoulder when Mac’s lips twitch, almost involuntarily.

“Yeah, I know you love Halloween, Jack. Everyone in the greater L.A. area knows how much you love Halloween after that disaster in 2014,” Mac teases and Jack feels a weight lift off his shoulders because the light is back in the kid’s eyes and, these days, Jack appreciates every little success for the win it is.

They haven’t had many successes lately.

“He, now. I wasn’t the one who nearly blew out the lights in a five mile radius,” Jack protests and Mac chuckles.

“No, but it was your idea to try to and I quote _out-Halloween the neighbors_. I told you it was a bad idea.”

“You still went along with it, Mac. That counts.” Mac is grinning at Jack and he can’t help but smile back, happy to pretend that they’re not currently thousands of miles apart on opposite ends of the world.

It’s the little wins that get Jack through his days now.

 

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The members of team Phoenix narrow down their suspect list, Desi talks to Oversight, Jack runs into trouble, and Mac steps into the unknown.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Plot and an OC I already used in one of my other stories. I like her, I hope you do, too.  
> Self-betaed, as always. All mistakes are my own.  
> Barely self-betaed this time. It's late and I'm tired, I'll go through it with a fine-toothed comb tomorrow but I wanted to post before I'm tempted to rewrite half the chapter because I actually like it as it is.  
> Also, I'd like to point out that most of this chapter was planned before 3.17, if you've seen the episode you'll know why.

“Next on our list are Andrew Brown, thirty-two years old, chemist, works in R&D, no obvious connection to Kovacs. The second one is Karen Patterson, thirty years old, Human Resources administrator. According to Riley they have coffee here together every Friday.” Leanna shows Sam the file while they’re waiting for their targets to finish their coffee.

“I think I know Patterson, very good at her job if I remember correctly…Jack used to call her the bane of his existence whenever he had to deal with her department,” Sam tells her absently, eyes still fixated on the two Phoenix employees in the coffee shop.

“She gets excellent performance reviews, that’s true.”

“What about money? Any signs that one of them is in financial trouble?” Leanna skips through the info on her tablet.

“No, and they don’t really have any family to use as pressure points either. Brown was raised by an elderly mother but she died two years ago, no significant other or children…Patterson comes from an affluent family, both parents died in a plane crash before she joined the Phoenix, she was the sole inheritor…she could stop working tomorrow and wouldn’t have to work ever again.”

“Great…two well established Phoenix employees with no financial troubles and no obvious pressure points,” Sam huffs frustrated, “Neither of them really fits the classic profile for someone who would betray their country.”

“Just like Carpenter and Wilson then. Ordinary, hard-working members of team Phoenix, but then again…that’s what interrogation is for?” Leanna asks with a wry grin and Sam starts the car again, pulling into traffic.

“That’s what interrogation is for.”  

…

“Why are we still working from here and not the Phoenix if we already know that one of these guys is our traitor?” Bozer asks, squinting at his screen. They’ve been going through their suspects’ files for hours and he’s pretty sure he just read the same sentence for the fifth time without understanding a word.

Riley yawns and stretches, she looks as tired as Bozer feels.

“We know who potentially placed the bomb, doesn’t mean we only have one mole.”

“Huh, makes sense I guess.” He probably would have thought of that himself if he wasn’t so damn tired.

“Alright, spill,” Riley slams down the lid of her laptop and narrows her eyes at him.

“Spill what?”Bozer squeaks, definitely awake now.

Did he do something? He can’t remember doing anything.

Riley rolls her eyes. “Whatever’s going on with you and Leanna? You two been dancing around for nearly two years now and as your friend I like to think you both deserve better than that.”

Well, ouch. Not that she’s wrong but…

“Shouldn’t we concentrate on this?” He tries to deflect, gesturing at his screen.

“I think we got everything we can so far. We managed to narrow down our list even further but until Sam and Leanna are back from surveillance there isn’t much more we can do. Now, what’s going on with you two? When I asked you about bunking together you looked at each other like two blushing virgins on their wedding night, Boze.”

Bozer takes a deep breath. What is it that Mac always says about privacy?

Right…that he doesn’t get any.

“It’s just…you know how we wanted to move in with each other before Jack left?” Riley nods. “I feel like everything before that was just… _before,_ you know and then Leanna had second thoughts and Jack left and I didn’t really _want_ to move out anymore because I couldn’t leave him, too?”

He considers his next words carefully. “And now we’re stuck in this limbo where I want to move forward…but I’m too afraid to ask if she even still wants to be with me.”

“Oh Boze…” Riley slumps back in her chair and rubs her eyes. “You know it helps if you actually _talk_ about things?”

“Funny, really funny. How’s it going with you and Billy these days?” Bozer retaliates and ducks the pencil Riley throws at him.

“Fine. Have it your way then but maybe think about whether you still want to be with Leanna or if you’re just in this relationship because it’s become comfortable,” Riley tells him, staring at the desk with a frown on her face.

Bozer has to admit she may be right. He and Leanna have fallen into the comfortable ease of two people used to being in each other’s space and it’s honestly been a while since they put some effort into their relationship. More often than not their actual time together has been spent on missions or Bozer helping out Mac in some way, not that he minds doing something for his buddy, Mac does enough for him, too, but Leanna definitely deserves better.

When did he start taking her for granted?

“Hey, guys,” Sam greets them as she and Leanna walk through the door.

“You finished already?” Riley asks and Leanna nods.

“We followed Brown and Patterson to the coffee shop. They had coffee, they talked, they left, and so did we.” Leanna steps up behind Bozer and he looks up at her.

His heart skips a beat. God he loves her, definitely putting in more effort after this whole thing is over.

“Hey, baby. You look tired.”

“I _am_ tired.” Bozer smiles at her. “But we managed to get Hannah Carpenter off the suspect list. Her son got into a fight at school like she said and the timeframe fits. She wasn’t anywhere close to the Phoenix during the time the bomb must have been placed.”

“Good work you two,” Sam says, putting a plastic bag on the conference table, “We brought dinner as a reward.”

Bozer pushes all thoughts about his future and the current mess away to deal with later.

It’s time to enjoy some time with his family.  

…

“Stay in the car, Charlie. I don’t think I’m in any danger today,” Matty says to her driver, the same one who’d brought Bozer and Leanna to the playground. He’s been working as her occasional driver and bodyguard for a few years now and Matty likes his quiet competence and dry sense of humour.

She plans to read him in on the APO as soon as her analysts have cleared him.

“Mam, I don’t think that’s a good idea. I’d rather keep an eye on you if you don’t mind. Could never look at myself in the mirror again if I let something happen to you on my watch,” he says and draws his eyebrows together, “And Dalton might be thousands of miles away but I just _know_ that ornery old war dog can smell it when we fall down on our jobs.”

Right, she forgot Charlie was originally one of Jack’s Tac team leaders before an injury forced him to retire from the rigours of constant field work.

“Fine, but stay in the background. I don’t think we have to expect trouble…I hope there won’t be any but you never know,” Matty tells him, straightening up.

“Constant vigilance, Mam?” He asks, keeping a straight face and if Matty didn’t know better she’d say that Harry Potter reference was entirely accidental. They make their way to the door, Charlie a silent shadow behind her and Matty rings the doorbell.

 “Matilda, that’s a surprise.” The door opens to a woman in her late fifties, unremarkable at first glance and looking more like a benevolent grandmother than a Phoenix agent in her plain housedress and sensible shoes, Catherine “call me Kat” Winter is nevertheless a woman to be reckoned with.

Recruited into the Phoenix long before Matty herself had joined the organization, Kat had steadily worked her way through the ranks and become one of the agency’s best interrogators and, after a disaster of a debriefing and Jack’s subsequent intervention, she had also become Mac’s permanent debriefing officer.

She and Mac share a surprising love of chemistry and explosions and have more than once given the lab supervisor a headache, co-opting lab space for the occasional unauthorized experiment.

Losing her would devastate them.

They’re led into a tastefully decorated living room and offered tea which they decline.

“I know why you’re here.” Kat sinks into the couch and motions for Matty to join her. “I would like to start by saying that I understand you need to follow every lead and I’m not mad you consider me a suspect.”

And that’s the other reason they’re here. Sam took one look at the woman’s file and told Matty there is no way they would be able to interrogate her without her knowing why. Catherine Winter wrote half of the unofficial books about interrogating subjects that the rest of them follow religiously and she’d see through any attempt to deceive her without even trying.

“You know I have to ask you this question, Kat,” Matty says and Kat’s face falls, her smile becoming sad.

“Your name is Charlie, right?” Kat addresses their silent companion and he nods solemnly.

“Yes, Mam.”

“I like to know as many names of my co-workers as possible, you know. Makes the whole process feel a bit more…personal. More comfortable in a way.” She turns back to Matty. “You want to know where I was. I was at the hospital, in the oncology department, receiving my chemo treatment as I do regularly.”

“Kat…,” Matty begins, suddenly blinking away tears. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Oh Matilda…what is there to say? It is what it is. I know I should have informed the Phoenix about this but…” She shrugs, saying everything and nothing. She gets up and moves to the window, staring at something unseen in the distance.

“The prognosis is quite good or so my doctor tells me. I didn’t want to unnecessarily worry anyone and now…” Kat turns back to Matty and Charlie, there’s something hard in her eyes, something that had broken more than one seasoned terrorist or criminal over the years. “Now I have a reason to hold on, to see whoever orchestrated the explosion go down in flames.”

“If you need anything…,” Matty tells her.

“I’ll tell you, don’t worry. But please, do me a favour? Keep me in the loop on the investigation and if anything comes up that I can help with…” Kat smiles tiredly.

“Kat…”

“I’m not on my deathbed yet, Matilda and I’d like to see both Mac and Jack home again in my lifetime, so please?”

“Fine,” Matty huffs exasperatedly, “Sit down Charlie, I think we’re going to have that tea now.”

After all, you never know how much time you might have left with your friends.

…

The atmosphere on the flight is tense. Desi would like to believe it’s purely out of worry for Mac but that would be a lie.

If Oversight hasn’t noticed her dislike by now, he’s not half the agent everyone thinks he is.

“I know you don’t like me, Agent Nguyen but if we’re going to work together to get my son through this, personal animosities will have to be set aside.” James regards her with a calculating look and if there’s one thing she can say for him, it’s that he never underestimated her.

“With all due respect, Sir. I don’t really know you…except through your relationship with your son.”

He chuckles wryly, it’s a subtle dig, as diplomatic as anything he ever said, implying that whatever negative opinion she might have of him, it’s well-deserved if only for the fact that she has done nothing more than judged him through Mac’s eyes far more harshly than Mac ever would and found him wanting.

Desi isn’t half the chess player Mac is but she does enjoy a good game of checkers every once in a while.

“I hope you’ll see that I only want what’s best for him then.”

She doesn’t answer, just nods, and gets up to make her way to the back of the plane to the highly advanced medical equipment keeping Mac alive. There’s a sleepy emergency physician sitting next to her partner, ready to spring to attention at a moment’s notice should the stress of the flight prove too much for Mac.

She steps up to the bed and takes Mac’s hand into hers, still not used to the fact that it’s so warm whereas Mac looks…

_Don’t thinks about it._

“Hey genius…,” Desi looks at their joined hands, blinking away tears, “This wasn’t our deal, Mac. You don’t get to sleep away the day while the rest of us…while the rest of us bust our assess trying to keep you alive and find the bastard responsible for this.”

She drops into the empty chair next to his bed.

“Dammit, Mac. What the hell am I going to tell Jack? Come on you stupid genius…wake up,” Desi pleads but still the only sound breaking the oppressive silence on the plane is the steady hum of the machines keeping him alive.

…

Kat is explaining the intricacies of brewing tea to Charlie when Matty gets the all clear from Riley. Kat has been cleared, so has Charlie, finally.

Kat does have a standing appointment at the hospital, not that Matty doubted her old friend’s words but protocol doesn’t allow her to share any detail of the investigation before Kat has been cleared of any suspicion and given what’s at stake here, she wants to do this right.

She _needs_ to do this right, if only to be able to look Mac and Jack in the eyes again when they come home. Matilda Webber doesn’t miss much but she will forever regret the fact that she missed _this_ – missed the traitor in their ranks and the fact that Mac had to pay the price for that failure.

Mac isn’t the only one who takes on responsibility for things he has no influence over, Matty just hides it better.

“I’m in the clear then?” Kat asks knowingly and Matty looks up from the screen.

“As if there was any doubt.”

“Still…it’s nice to have it official. Now, who else is on that suspect list of yours?” Kat asks with a raised eyebrow, “Don’t make me ask twice, talking about this isn’t going to make the cancer any worse and I might have some insight into your suspects that you find useful.”

Matty smiles ruefully, fighting down the instinct to coddle a woman who is everything but weak because Kat is right. If there’s anyone who’s going to know these people, it’s Catherine Winter.

“Hannah Carpenter…”

“Mid-forties, recruited from the FBI, two children, husband was a Phoenix agent killed on a job a few years ago. She might harbour some resentment against us for that but I can’t really see her as a traitor, she’s much too dedicated to her job and she likes Mac, says he reminds her of her son. I think she brings him leftovers on Mondays to make sure he eats more than those terrible protein bars the boy likes to live on.” Kat smiles at Charlie’s astonished look.

“Close your mouth my friend. I’ve been working at the Phoenix for longer than most and I never had any family so in a way all of you are,” She adds and looks at Matty expectantly.

“Okay then…Andrew Brown?”

“Recent hire, so I can’t tell you much but…skinny, too pale to have seen much of the Californian sun lately and with the constant need to move, a bit like a squirrel on ecstasy. Seems like a decent fellow, has a standing coffee date every Friday with Karen from Human Resources. They’re not seeing each other, though because I’m pretty sure Brown has an affair with Michael Hunter from Tactical Operations…and by the look on your face I said something you find very interesting.” She narrows her eyes at Matty.

“Both Michael Hunter and Karen Patterson are on our suspect list…and I’m pretty sure Hunter is married,” Matty tells her but Kat only shrugs in response.

“Open marriage from what I understand, he’s normally very discreet. Of course, that could be a motive in and itself. Nothing like spurned love to make you reconsider your loyalties.”

“Alright…I have one more. Kelly Wilson?”

Kat considers for a moment. “Mid-twenties, dark brown hair, shy but very good at her job in R&D?” Matty nods. “Not impossible but unlikely. She’s relatively new, so she didn’t have time to develop the kind of loyalty to the organization that most of us have, but she _is_ loyal to Mac. They have a lot in common. She went through MIT at an accelerated rate on a scholarship and was recruited almost immediately after graduation. And besides…I think she has a girlfriend working in Medical which would add a pretty strong tie to the Phoenix.”

“I guess it’s time I had a word with Mister Hunter and Mister Brown then, don’t you?” Matty asks and Kat nods in agreement.

“My dear Matilda, I do believe you’re right.”

…

“Move, move, move, move, _move_ ,” Jack yells at his team trying to see through the smoke. Miller is down, body full of shrapnel, closest to the bomb when it exploded. Jack doesn’t want to leave his body behind but he’s barely standing upright and right now he needs to focus on getting the rest of his men out of this hell alive.

“Delgado, take point, if the stairs made it through the explosion intact, that’s our exit point.” The dark-haired man nods and moves to the front, leading them away from the carnage. Jack takes up rear, carefully making sure that everyone is with them.

Everyone except Miller, the former SBS member turned MI6 who loved soccer and cheesy action flicks and who had saved Jack’s life last year after they’d run into an ambush in Prague looking for one of Kovacs’ contacts.

Jack hasn’t been able to return the favour today.

He’s trying not to think about it.

“Clear,” Delgado shouts from the front and they make their way down the stairs at a snail’s pace. Just because they can’t see the enemy, doesn’t mean there isn’t another ambush waiting for them and Jack knows the entrance hall of the building would be perfect to pick off the survivors, a veritable bottle-neck of an architectonical nightmare they have to pass through to get to safety.

The other exits have been blocked by the explosion and if Jack were in charge of whoever laid this trap, that’s the place he’d choose to finish them off.

They make their way outside safely, against his expectations, and can only watch as the building vanishes in a fiery inferno, taking the body of their colleague and friend with it.

“They knew we were coming,” Marco Delgado murmurs just loud enough for Jack to hear. The former GSG 9 operator turned BND officer of Spanish-German ancestry and essentially Jack’s second in command has been invaluable to Jack in the past months and he knows that Jack suspects a traitor in their ranks. What happened to Carmichael’s sister and Mac only confirmed their suspicions.

Jack needed to trust someone on his team and Matty’s analysts picked apart Delgado’s life until they could be as sure as possible that he wasn’t the traitor.

There’s always a small margin for error but sometimes even spies have to take a leap of faith.

Jack tries, and fails, not to think of Mac lying in a hospital bed somewhere, cut-off from the world and his family. Cut-off from Jack and…

If Jack just had a little more _time_. 

He glances at the tags he removed from Miller before they left, clenched in his fist – he’ll have at least those to give to Miller’s family and nods grimly.

It’s time he talked to Matty again.

…

 

Mac is sitting down on his imaginary living room floor, files spread out around him. Time doesn’t have any meaning to him right now so he has no idea how long he’s been going through the cardboard boxes but judging by the mess surrounding him, it’s been a while.

“That looks like you could use some help,” Bozer says teasingly but Mac ignores him.

He’s not real.

“We’re as real as you are, Mac,” Riley adds, annoyed, “Just because we’re figments of your imagination doesn’t mean you can just ignore us.”

“Yeah, you can be really annoying if you want to be, so naturally, we are, too. Would you just look up, Mac? You need a break.”

Mac does and almost chokes on a laugh. Bozer and Riley are standing in the living room, as expected, but Bozer is wearing tight jeans, heeled boots and a midriff- baring top while Riley looks at her paisley-covered shirt and vest with interest.

“What, I think I pull it off, don’t you?” She grins and Mac shrugs in response to Bozer’s accusing look.

“My brain isn’t working at full capacity…I must have gotten confused.”

Bozer rolls his eyes and Riley drops down next to him, taking one of the files, flipping through it absently.

“So, why are we here Mac?”

Mac considers her question. “I think I need you to help me sort through this. You’re both pretty good at data analysis and I need to find some structure to this mess.”

“Do you?” Bozer steps closer and sits down on the couch. “Think about it. What do these files tell you?”

“They’re raw data points. People I met, places I’ve been, things I’ve done. I need to narrow these down to something I can actually _work_ with,” Mac grumbles, “it’s going to take months if I have to sort through all of this.”

He picks up a file and throws it on top of another. He can’t make out any recognizable pattern in this and if he doesn’t get somewhere in the near future, he might actually go insane.

 _“Like you’ve got any shred of sanity left, hoss.”_ The Jack in his head teases and Mac tells him to shut up. He has a point though, considering that Mac has entire conversations with his imaginary voice while comatose.

“Hey, Mac…hey,” Riley says, grabbing his arm to stop him from erratically working out his ire by throwing files around.

“Bozer’s right. You don’t _need_ these files. Your brain might think you do, but you don’t.”

“What are you…?”

“ _Think_ , Mac.” Bozer leans forward. “I know you’re afraid but you need to go back there if you want to remember what’s important. You don’t need these files because you were _there_.”

Mac swallows heavily.

“You mean…the Phoenix.” He glances at Riley who looks at him with that compassionate smile of hers that always makes him feel at _home_.

“We’re not here to help you sort through this mess, Mac. We’re here to remind you of what you _can_ do. Now stop hiding in the house and _do_ something.” As she speaks, the living room begins to fade around him. Mac blinks and…

_There’s bright light coming through the windows, Desi grins at him and they leave the War Room side by side, walking towards the elevator…_

He’s standing in front of the elevator going down to the garage where his jeep was waiting for him that day. He looks at his watch, it’s the right time.

“So, now it’s my turn, eh?” Jack says next to him. Mac doesn’t startle because where else would Jack be.

He’s about to face the events that nearly killed him, might still kill him, events that definitely traumatized him enough his brain thought he should hide out in his house for a while.

Desi may have been his partner for almost two years now but he’s known Jack for a _decade_ and despite everything currently standing between them there’s no one he ~~loves~~ trusts more.

“I guess my brain thought I’d need my protector now that I’m about to do something dangerous,” Mac tells his partner. Jack grins at him.

“Figures you had to be on death’s doorstep to admit that…down we go then?”

“Into the mouth of Hell,” Mac whispers to himself as the elevator doors open.

“Rode the six hundred,” Jack finishes for him and together they step into the unknown. 

 

                                                                                                                                        

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team closes in on their mole and Mac proves that even with half a brain he's still miles ahead of the rest of the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me tell you, I haven't written actual plot since my days in the Stargate fandom and I almost forgot how difficult it is. Kudos to every writer who regularly writes plotty multi chapter fics. I think I'll be going back to mushy one shots for a while after finishing this story before I plan on another fic with actual plot, just to let my last two brain cells recover a bit, you know.
> 
> As always, self-betaed. All mistakes are my own.

Andrew Brown doesn’t seem very worried, facing both the Phoenix director and Sam in one of the Phoenix’s conference rooms. He smiles at them with the kind of amiable interest of the very innocent or the very, very guilty. They’d decided to do this at the Phoenix and not use the interrogation rooms for questioning because so far their suspects didn’t actually know that they were – well, _suspects_ and both she and Matty agreed to keep it that way as long as possible. Once they narrow in on their mole, they have a few very uncomfortable holding cells at the secondary location where they can stash him or her until they're sure that the Phoenix doesn't have more than one traitor hiding in the ranks.

“Very well, Mr. Brown. I’m sorry for pulling you out of your routine on short notice but we need your help answering a few questions,” Sam tells him. Brown's eyes light up and she was right in guessing his weakness then. Brown has a history of fragile and troubled relationships. His colleagues describe him as intelligent but overly confident with a need for excessive attention and admiration.

She’s hesitant to diagnose him with a narcissistic personality disorder without assessing him further but that’s not why they’re here.

It does give her an in with him, though. Appeal to his ego and he’s likely to talk.

She’s right.

“Is this about Agent MacGyver? I’m sorry but I don’t really know anything about that, only what everyone else knows, I guess.” Brown shrugs and if he’s guilty he’s a very good actor because he’s projecting nothing but confusion and innocence.

“This is just a routine questioning, Mr Brown. Something all Phoenix employees who were in the building that day have to go through,” Matty says, picking up on Sam’s intentions easily, “We only want to reconstruct the incident as accurately as possible and your colleagues told us you have a very good memory for details.”  

Brown looks pleased but uncomfortable and it’s the first time he shows any emotion aside from that guileless smile on his face.

“You were here that day, right? Your ID Card shows you were in the building at the time of the explosion,” Sam tells him and Brown starts fidgeting, nervously wringing his hands.

“Look, I…I was here, yes. But I wasn’t exactly close by when it happened.” Brown avoids her eyes but Sam is patient – this isn’t her first rodeo.

“And where were you when it happened?” Matty interjects just at the right time, reminding Brown that he might be questioned by what is essentially an outsider to the organisation now but that his boss is still in the room as well.

“I was with Michael,” Brown blurts out almost too quickly and he looks bewildered right after, like he can’t quite believe he just said that.

“You’re talking about Michael Hunter, leader of Tac team five,” Sam says and Brown nods vigorously. He doesn’t say anything else but swallows audibly in the silence of the conference room and still doesn’t look at them directly.

Sam glances at Matty who nods and they get up simultaneously while Andrew Brown looks at them wide-eyed.

“We’re finished here Mr Brown,” Matty says but suddenly Brown starts shaking his head and there’s a calculating glint in his eyes that Sam isn’t entirely sure she likes.

“Wait, please…,” he takes a deep breath and starts talking, “I think I can still help you. You’re looking at everyone who was in the building close to the time of the explosion, right?”

Matty nods. “We do, yes.”

“I don’t want to point the finger at anyone but…look I have coffee on Fridays with a colleague of mine which you likely already know,” Brown says and it’s clear that he’s realized by now that this is more than a follow up to the explosion – it’s an interrogation and he’s on the suspect list, “And Patterson, she’s changed lately. I don’t know if this has anything to do with what happened to Agent MacGyver but she was really nervous that day. I thought you should know that.”

Sam stares at Brown, trying to understand why he’s willingly throwing Karen Patterson under the bus - a woman who everybody else seems to think is his friend.

“Thank you Mr Brown. We will follow up on the information you’ve given us.” Matty leaves the conference room, Sam silently following behind. They don’t stop until they reach Matty’s office, a room Sam rarely saw even when she was still employed at the Foundation.

“What do you think about that?” Matty asks tiredly, sitting down on the comfortable leather couch in front of the windows. Sam considers her question.

“It’s consistent with what Hunter told us earlier,” Sam tells her and Matty nods absently, staring at something in the distance.

“Isn’t it terrible that I really hoped it was Brown?” Matty’s eyes focus on Sam and there’s something almost pleading in them that Sam has never seen before. Matty projects such strength to everyone around her most of the time that even Sam who prides herself on being able to read people forgets that Matilda Webber is actually human herself and subject to the same human weaknesses as the rest of them.

Sam takes a seat next to her and grabs Matty’s hand with her own, squeezing gently. “No, it’s not. It’s human. You haven’t known him nearly as long as the others and it’s only natural not to want having to arrest a friend for trying to kill another friend.”

Matty squeezes back and smiles at her gratefully. “Mac isn’t just another friend, though. He’s family.” 

Sam smiles. “Yes, he is. Do you want me to inform Riley at the APO? Tell them to follow up with Patterson?” Sam asks and Matty just nods tiredly in response. Sam doesn’t let go of her hand, though. The day has been hard enough; they can afford to take a minute or two.   

…

“So...I guess Patterson is the mole then?” Bozer asks while they’re watching her apartment building from the car. Leanna is in the driver’s seat while Riley tries to match an almost non-existent rap sheet to a woman who apparently betrayed all of them and tried to kill Mac.

“I don’t get it,” Riley huffs frustrated and almost flings her laptop away in disgust, “It just doesn’t make sense. This is not the profile of a woman who has reason to do what we think she did.” Riley is an expert at data analysis and she knows how the profile of a traitor _should_ look. They’re all different of course but there’s always a common denominator, something that turns them into a traitor in the first place – even if it’s just a simple thing like greed.

“Maybe it’s something we just can’t see yet,“ Bozer muses absently and Riley nods. It’s the most likely scenario and something Matty and Sam will have to ferret out in interrogation later.

Still…something doesn’t add up.

“Guys, I think we should get up there now,” Leanna says suddenly, lowering her binoculars.

“What’s going on?” Riley ask, leaning forward and trying to catch a glimpse of Patterson through the windshield.

“I don’t know but she was just on the phone and now she’s nervous. I think she was packing a bag.” Leanna opens her door and Riley and Bozer follow.

“You think she’s trying to run?” Riley asks and they pick up the pace.

“It’s possible.”

They come upon Patterson just as she’s leaving her apartment. When she spots them coming towards her, her eyes widen in recognition and she turns around, running in the opposite direction.

“Karen wait,” Riley shouts after her but it doesn’t help. Patterson is already through the doors leading to the building’s stairwell, Riley following closely behind. To their surprise, Patterson doesn’t go down but _up_ and Riley silently curses herself for not insisting they carry comms this time because Bozer took the elevator and is probably already downstairs again.

They follow Patterson all the way to the top of the building, Leanna leading the way because she’s the one with a gun. Riley promises herself that she’ll finally work on getting approved to carry in the field when this is all over because Leanna isn’t always with them and until now, Desi’s had to shoulder all the responsibility when they’re out together. When Jack had still been with them, Riley never felt the pressure quite as badly as she does now because Jack is still a larger than life figure to her even if she’d never admit it to his face, but Riley’s gotten over her gun-shyness years ago and while she still doesn’t particularly _like_ guns, she does see the value of carrying one in the field.

Patterson is standing at the edge of the building once they catch up with her and Riley eyes the way her hands shake, trying to hitch up her bag on her shoulder.

“Don’t…don’t come any closer.” Riley and Leanna stop a few feet away from her. Not only are Patterson’s hands shaking but her voice sounds shaky and her pupils are blown wide.

Shit. Riley and Leanna look at each other and nod in silent agreement. Leanna engages the safety on her gun and puts it down on the ground in front of them.

“Karen, please,” Riley says, trying to sound as harmless as possible, “Step away from the edge. Let us _help_ you.” Bozer still isn’t there and Riley curses silently. This isn’t her speciality, she’s not good at talking to people, not the way Bozer and Mac are.

“You can’t help me,” Patterson all but yells at them and takes a step back, bringing her that closer to the edge. “He _lied_ to me. No one was supposed to get hurt.”  

“Who lied to you, Karen?” Bozer says suddenly having appeared next to Riley and she instantly breathes easier. Bozer takes a careful step forward.

“Don’t,” Patterson whispers, eyes locked on Bozer. Wilt Bozer might not be the most talented operative to ever leave spy school but his ability to make people trust him is just as magical as his ability to do a keg stand.

“I know you’re afraid, Karen. But we’re here to help you,” Bozer says, taking another step forward and this time Patterson doesn’t react so he steps even closer.

“No one was supposed to get hurt,” she says again and looks at the hand Bozer holds out to her.

“I know that, Karen. We all know that. You didn’t mean to hurt Mac and I’m sure Mac knows that, too.” His hand is almost touching hers now and Patterson smiles at him sadly.

“It’s just…he reminds me of Eddie so much.” Bozer takes another step and tries to grab her hand but it’s already gone and they can only watch in horror as Karen Patterson takes the last step over the edge and vanishes before their eyes.

…

“You know this isn’t gonna work if we just stay in here, right?” Jack asks in that ‘I know that you know I’m right even if you don’t want to admit it’ tone of voice that he’s perfected over the years working with Mac and that always drives Mac crazy – well, used to with Jack mostly being gone these days.

Jack moves from where he’s been leaning against the wall and takes a few steps until he’s standing just outside in the Phoenix parking lot, looking back at Mac expectantly.

“Come on, hoss. You’re the one that dragged us down here.” Jack quirks an eyebrow at him and holds out his hand. When Mac doesn’t react, he wriggles his fingers and eyebrows simultaneously and Mac almost chokes on a laugh.

Trust Jack to make him feel better even when he’s just a hallucination in Mac’s mind.

He wraps his fingers around Jack’s and lets himself be pulled through the door, stumbling a bit in his haste to move but Jack steadies him with a careful hand on his arm. Mac takes a deep breath, realizing that his mind even got the _scent_ right, that elusive mix of gunpowder and leather that Jack always smells like and Mac’s spent countless hours mulling over the fact that it shouldn’t be _possible_ for that smell to make him feel as it does but he’s yet to find an answer as to why.

Above all else that scent means _safety_ to Mac and it’s all he can do not to throw himself into Jack’s arms right now even if he’s just a Jack-like representation in his mind.

“You alright, Mac?” Jack asks and cups Mac’s cheek with the hand previously steadying him, tilting Mac’s head up until their eyes meet. Mac silently curses his excellent memory because every detail of Jack’s ~~beloved~~ face, from his expressive eyebrows to the curve of his lips that Mac wants to trace with his fingers and then follow up with his mouth, is exactly as he remembers and it’s messing with his head. Until now Mac’s been relatively confident that he’s not in danger of losing himself to this fantasy world of his, of still being able to distinguish between reality and whatever fucked up dream world this is.

Looking at Jack makes it just that much harder not to give into temptation and lose himself in this world where his partner is in LA with Mac and not thousands of miles away, looking more and more tired each time Mac talks to him through a shaky video feed.

Mac extricates himself from Jack’s hold and takes a step back. “I’m fine…come on, you’re right. Let’s get this over with.” He turns away and walks over to his Jeep which is exactly where Mac had parked it on the morning of that fateful day. Before he can reach it though, someone steps up to him and grabs his arm. It’s not Jack, that Mac recognizes immediately and he fights the urge to flip whoever it is over his shoulder.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry, Mac.” The hand lets go and Mac turns around, looking at Kelly Wilson, a Phoenix researcher Mac spent a lot of time with while developing the lidar system. Kelly is one of the few friends he’s made among the Phoenix researchers. Most of them are either too intimidated by his status as a field agent to approach him or can’t accept the fact that he’s technically a college dropout but still able to keep up with or even surpass them in their own fields most of the times.

Kelly never had that problem, though. She may look like the proverbial unassuming, all American girl next door but she powered her way through two degrees at MIT and has a mind that Mac truly admires.

“It’s alright, Kelly.” Mac looks at her closely and notices the bags under her eyes and her generally dishevelled appearance as well as the coffee mug she’s clutching almost desperately to her chest.

Probably a late night research binge in the lab, Mac’s been guilty of that once or twice himself.

Kelly fidgets with her mug for a moment, eyes hiding behind her outgrown fringe. She seems to come to some kind of decision and nods to herself before looking up at Mac.

“There’s something you should know, Mac. I’m not sure…I mean I don’t really know how to say this.” She sighs heavily and Mac can see Jack looking at them curiously. Kelly doesn’t notice of course. Jack isn’t really there and this conversation is just a memory of the exact same conversation Mac couldn’t remember having before the explosion until now.

He smiles encouragingly. “Just say it, Kelly. Is everything okay in the lab? Your project going well?” Mac doesn’t really think it’s about her work, though. If his brain thinks it’s important he remember this exact conversation it’s probably about the explosion.

“Oh that’s fine. Everything’s going well, don’t worry. No…you remember Andrew from level five?” Mac has to think about it but then he does.

“Uh…chemist right?” Mac guesses, vaguely remembering a pale, skinny guy who was terrible at Karaoke. Kelly nods.

“Yeah, that’s him. Look…I normally wouldn’t do this but...”She rubs a hand through her hair, making the strands stand up seemingly against the laws of nature and dislodges the pen she’s been keeping behind her ear. Mac catches it and hands it back to her while she glances at it, slightly bemused.

“Wondered where I’d left that…anyway. We had our monthly Karaoke night last Friday and Brown never sings at those anymore ever since the first time he came with us. You ought to remember that disaster, you were there, weren’t you?” Mac nods. “So, he doesn’t sing but he drinks – a lot. And then he talks a lot, too. And you know that people talk a lot of shit they wouldn’t have said if they’d been sober, but…Mac…Brown, he _hates_ you. Like really, really hates you.”

“Why? I don’t really know him all that well,” Mac says and tries to remember if he did anything or said anything that could have made Andrew Brown hate him but he draws a blank.

Kelly looks past him towards his car and realizes that Mac had been on his way out when she stopped him. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were leaving, Mac,” She says and smiles a little awkwardly, “I’m not saying Brown’s a danger or anything, just…be careful okay? He sounded really angry and in my experience men like him can become dangerous just when you’re not looking.” Mac nods at her and she turns back towards the building, leaving him with a curiously empty feeling in his stomach.

“So, you’re thinking what I’m thinking?” Jack asks, somehow having appeared right where Kelly stood before.

Mac looks at Jack. “Given that you’re really nothing more than a hallucination, that’s likely, yes.”

“Ouch, right where it hurts Mac,” Jack steps back dramatically and places a hand over his heart. Mac rolls his eyes. Apparently his mind even thought to replicate Jack’s occasional tendency to be a drama queen.

“There’s just…,” Mac hesitates, “There’s something that doesn’t add up here. I can understand if someone hates me but trying to blow me up right in the Phoenix parking lot seems like overkill.”

“Hey, we met another lunatic bomb maker who liked overkill, remember? What’s to say Brown isn’t another Ghost in the making?” Jack tells him something that Mac’s already considered himself but it still feels like he’s missing something important. Like there’s some elusive detail in this entire mess that will unravel the Gordian knot in Mac’s mind once he finds out what it is.

Andrew Brown…

_Mac is working on one of his spare projects as Charlie saunters into the tent, followed by a fellow soldier looking even greener than Mac if that’s possible._

_“Hey, Mac. You met Bobby yet?" The soldier with Charlie grimaces at the name and steps forward…_

_The first thing he tastes when he wakes up is sand, mixed with his own blood. He turns over and spots Bobby next to him, having to fight not to throw up. Bobby was in front of him when the device blew up, inadvertently shielding Mac from the blast…_

Mac looks up at a still silent Jack who regards him with a curious glint in his eyes.

“Jack, I…I think I know why Brown might have tried to kill me.”

 

_Desi is reading one of the books from the clinic's surprisingly extensive library, realizing her heart isn't really in it when she reads the same sentence for the fifth time without understanding a word of it. She puts the book away and looks at Mac's still form just in time to see the fingers of his left hand twitch. It's not much, barely a movement at all but hope rises in her chest and she grabs Mac's hand with hers while pressing the button alerting Mac's doctor._

_Please...  
_

    

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you're still enjoying this fic because I still enjoy writing it and I promise an actual macdalton reunion at some point, just have to wade through all the angst first. And yes, Desi will get something to do aside from holding Mac's hand and worrying about her partner. I have an actual reason for sending her away with him, promise.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things continue to progress, Jack is angsty, and there's a damsel in distress to save.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh look a chapter *shifty eyes*. No goats were sacrificed while writing this chapter but it was a close thing.  
> Warnings for some slightly personal stuff regarding why I wrote this fic in the first place in the end notes.  
> Also, further warning for handwavy medical science.
> 
> As always, self-betaed. All mistakes are my own.

“Andrew, wait.” Kelly just manages to catch up with her colleague before he enters the elevator to the parking garage. He stops and looks at her while she’s trying to catch her breath.

She’s _got_ to put in more time in the gym to balance out those all-nighters and her crappy food habits.

“Kelly…can I help you?” The elevator doors close again and for just a moment Kelly thinks there’s an unreasonable amount of anger in his eyes, but then it’s gone and she must have been mistaken. Andrew might be a reclusive guy, but he’s usually pretty mellow.

“I wanted to say I’m sorry about Karen. I know you two were pretty close.” He frowns at her.

“Where did you get that idea?” He asks and it’s Kelly’s turn to frown because she might not be the most observant person on a good day, but she and Andrew are practically lab neighbours and she couldn’t help noticing that he spent a lot of time with Karen over the past few months.

She almost tells him exactly that but…

There’s just something about his eyes.

“I mean…you were having coffee with her pretty regularly, weren’t you? So I just thought…” Kelly silently curses her inability to improvise – it’s one of the reason why she never applied for field certification. Mac had been coaching her on that but now…

God, she hopes he's going to be okay because he was the first friend she made after starting at the Phoenix and he was also the one who encouraged her to ask out Amber. He’s become her friend without her even noticing and she misses him something fierce.

Andrew rolls his eyes and presses the button for the elevator again. “Look, Kelly…just because we were having coffee every once in a while doesn’t mean I knew her. I mean, look at the mess she got herself in.” The doors open again. “I gotta go. Thanks for the concern, Kells. It’s really not necessary.”

The doors close and she resists the urge to yell at the wall. Only Mac and Amber call her Kells and she’d like to keep it that way.

Still…something about his response felt _off_.

She resolves to speak to Matty about it.

… 

The first thing Jack notices after they connect to the Phoenix is how tired Matty looks. Jack hasn’t seen her face to face in nearly two months and she looks like she hasn’t really slept since.

“Jack, it’s good to see you.” Matty smiles sadly and Jack tries not to let it get to him, this feeling of being far from home, of wanting to go back to LA and to the people he left behind.

He’s been fighting it for two years and it hasn’t gotten any easier.

“You too, boss-lady.”

“No longer your boss, Jack,” Matty responds and while that may technically be true, Jack is always going to look towards Matilda Webber as the person in charge because she is just that good and their history is one that can’t be put aside that easily.

“Any news from Mac?” Jack asks hopefully. Until now he’s been able to shove the knotted mess of worry and anxiety for the kid into the farthest corner of his mind, but seeing Matty in person brings all of it back with a vengeance.

Matty smiles at him and Jack feels hope rising in his chest because that’s a real smile and not the one she uses to placate people.

“Actually, yes…there’s good news, Jack. Very good news. Mac woke up.”

Jack grabs the edge of the desk he’s standing in front of to keep himself from sliding to the floor. The relief makes him lightheaded and Matty gives him a moment to compose himself.

“Did he…did he say anything?” Jack asks, even though he knows that Mac probably isn’t that kind of awake yet. Matty grins wryly.

“According to Desi, he isn’t talking yet but the doctors are confident that he’ll wake up fully in a day or two.” She takes a deep breath and her expression grows solemn.

“Of course, then they have to determine the extent of the damage and until then there’s no telling what his long-term prognosis looks like.”

Jack nods in response and swallows, throat suddenly dry and heavy with disappointment, even though he _knows_ these kind of injuries take time to recover from.

The most important thing is that Mac is _awake_ , that he _lived_. Now Jack can focus on finding Kovacs, on making the bastard pay for what he did to Jack’s boy.

He’s got a question first, though.

“Desi is with Mac?”

“Yes, she is. She managed to convince James that Mac needed someone from the team with him.” Matty says and Jack frowns. The Desi Jack met all those years ago had a very strong rule of not getting attached to her co-workers, but over the last few years Jack’s been a witness as Mac slowly managed to tear down the walls she build around herself and ingratiated himself into her life, becoming somewhat of a younger brother in the process.

How the kid keeps getting himself adopted by cynical former Special Ops soldiers is a mystery Jack has yet to solve. Not that he’s complaining, the more people to watch Mac’s back the better. Jack may have wrestled with some unwanted feelings of jealousy when he first noticed that Desi had gotten _attached_ , but he quickly realized that neither Mac nor Desi harboured any kind of romantic feelings towards each other.

They were way too similar for that to happen – something which, in retrospect, Jack probably should have seen coming.

“Doesn’t that mean you’re a person short for the investigation?” Jack asks but Matty shakes her head.

“I brought Cage in – she’s a much better fit for this type of investigation anyway.” Jack fights the urge to defend Desi from what wasn’t really a slight on Matty’s part. They all have their strength and weaknesses and if there’s one thing their team had been missing after Cage’s return to Australia, it was someone with her inherent understanding of people and their motivations.

“And how is the investigation going?”

“We think we identified the traitor…or at least the person who placed the bomb,” Matty says, frowning heavily. “She killed herself, Jack but…there’s just something we’re missing.”

“You don’t think she worked alone,” Jack states and Matty nods.

“We haven’t identified any co-conspirators yet but believe me, we’re locking…how is it going on your end?” She asks with a wry grin and it’s Jack’s turn to frown now.

“We were lured into a trap two days ago…I lost one of my best people. Marco thinks we should put operations on halt until we have a better idea who might be the leak.”

“Do you agree with him?”

Jack considers her question. “Three days ago I would have said no but now…”

Now he’s lost Miller and fears losing even more of his team should they continue to pursue Kovacs and his associates with a probable leak in their ranks.

Jack makes a decision.

“I think I’m going to have to.”

…

“Matty, hey, I think I identified the “Eddie” Karen was talking about on the roof,” Riley says two days later while striding into the conference room Matty has appropriated as her temporary office at the APO.

“So, remember how we couldn’t find any suspicious financial transactions on our suspects?” Riley asks, looking at Matty with a question in her eyes. Matty nods and motions for her to go on.

“I decided to dig deeper because, well… _no one_ is that clean.”

“And you found something.”

“And I found something.” Riley gestures at the screen, now displaying the picture of a fairly non-descriptive man somewhere in his late twenties or early thirties.

Riley continues. “Karen may not have made or received any suspicious payments but her parents definitely did…meet Edward Simmons and, if I put everything together correctly, Karen’s half-brother on her father’s side.”

Matty has no doubt that Riley _did_ put it together correctly because she’s nothing if not thorough.

“Dad wasn’t quite as squeaky clean as the family portraits suggest then?”

Riley grins. “Oh, definitely not. And Edward…or Eddie, I guess, has a pretty troubled history of drug abuse beginning in his late teens. He’s currently staying in an expensive rehab facility on the east coast and guess who’s been paying for it.”

It’s not much of a guess at this point. “Karen?”

“Karen.” Riley nods. “What I can’t figure out is how they got to him because I had to dig pretty deep to even find a _hint_ of his existence. Anyone who wanted to get to Karen via Eddie would have had to do some _pretty_ serious research first.”

“Guys… _guys_.” Bozer all but runs into the room, breathing heavily. “Desi called. Mac is awake and talking…well a bit anyways but…you won’t believe what he said.”

…

“Well, that makes it official. All operations are put on hold until further notice. The only ones left here are you, me, Eugenie, and Patrick,” Marco says to Jack with a slightly crooked smile.

“Patrick is back at work? I thought he was still with his family?” Jack had told the analyst to take as much leave as he needed, had in fact already started to look at possible replacements in case Patrick decided not to come back at all.

“I know. He told me he needed to come back, wants to be involved in the hunt now that the stakes have turned personal.” Jack nods thoughtfully.

“That won’t necessarily be a good thing.” Jack has seen first-hand what it can look like when an agent’s personal life gets embroiled in a mission like this, when a level-headed hunt turns into a quest for revenge and the aftermath is rarely pretty.

“Keep an eye on him?”

Marco smiles. “Already doing it boss.”

Jack closes his eyes and leans back in his chair, only barely supressing a yawn. He and Marco are the only ones left at their temporary headquarters this late at night and Jack would really appreciate some sleep right about now.

“Don’t you have an impersonal, temporary apartment to go home to?” Jack asks wearily and Marco grins at him with that impish look in his eyes that always painfully reminds Jack of Mac in all the ~~best~~ worst ways. Marco has about a decade on Mac and a lot more sense of self-preservation but there are also many unfortunate personality traits they share.

Like their ability to see through Jack's bullshit.  

“I do, but it’s almost four in the morning, Jack. I probably won’t be able to sleep anyway and if I have to stare at the ugly wallpaper in that apartment any longer I might be tempted to shoot someone in the morning...might even be you if you continue to be such a grouch.” He continues to grin at Jack but then his expression becomes a lot more sympathetic.

“No, I’m not being fair, you have reason after all…how’s that partner of yours doing by the way? Any news?” Marco asks and Jack opens his eyes again, carefully regarding his second in command. Jack’s pretty sure the other man at least suspects that Jack’s feelings for Mac go a bit deeper than Jack likes to let on, that he hasn’t been looking at Mac in a brotherly way in years now.

“He woke up…doesn’t speak yet, but according to Matty, the doctors are hopeful.” Marco smiles widely at his answer.

“Man, that’s great news. Why do you still look so downtrodden my friend?”

Jack sighs. “It’s just…I’ve known that kid for a _decade_ and whenever he was seriously injured in the past I’ve been there. This might well be the worst he’s been so far – it’s going to take months if not years until he’ll be able to back in the field – _and I won’t be there_.”

Jack stares at his hands and tries not to let this feeling of helplessness overwhelm him – something he’s been failing at ever since he received that damned video of Mac in his Jeep. He’s _promised_ Mac, so many times, that he’d always be there for the kid and now when it counts, when Mac nearly _died_ because of something Jack is doing…

Jack is half a world away with no chance of getting anywhere close to Mac in the near future.

Marco clears his throat. “First of all, you told me that you have people, family, looking out for him. I got the impression that you trust them, so trust them to take care of your boy for now. As for the rest…” He pauses and there’s a determined look in his eyes that tells Jack all he needs to know about whether or not the other man will have his back in the days to come. “Guess we just have to make sure that we get the bastard as quickly as possible.”

Jack nods, hope rising in his chest. He knows it’s irrational, a few seconds pep-talk won’t erase all the other obstacles in their way, the fact that they have to find their leak first before they can even _think_ of resuming their hunt.

But maybe it’s time Jack stopped trying to shoulder it all alone, even if just in his head. He knows Desi is with Mac, knows that she and Mac have formed the kind of friendship that means Desi will be at Mac’s side until someone drags her away kicking and screaming, that Mac would do the same if their positions were reversed. Jack also knows that the rest of the team are going to move heaven and earth until they have their traitor and that Marco and the task force will do the same right here.

Two years ago Jack left LA with little regard for the mess he was leaving behind, because he _couldn’t_ – couldn’t think about the team, about Mac, without wanting to scream at the unfairness of it all, the fact that he’s just gotten his partner _back_ and now had to leave him behind all over again.

This time it was _Jack_ who was leaving and making the selfish decision of leaving Mac behind because he needed his head clear for the upcoming hunt, and he couldn’t do that if he thought about protecting Mac at the same time. If it’s taught him anything, it’s why Mac had been able to do the same just a few months earlier. Jack had taken Mac’s abandonment as the kid abandoning _him_ , specifically, and hadn’t realized that Mac had likely just been desperately searching for space to _breathe_ , to clear his head and make a decision about his Dad without his family pushing him into one direction or another.

Jack has to trust the team now, has to trust Desi, that they continue to protect Mac, that they do the job they’re so very good at and find the traitor in their ranks and afterwards…well, maybe it’s time Jack truly starts using the resources Matty’s been offering for the past two years. Maybe it’s time he starts bringing in the team on the hunt, at least peripherally. Jack may not want to have them physically close to the task force, the thought still makes him sweat with impending panic, but he knows that especially having Mac and Riley’s brains on this would probably make a lot of things go much easier.

And Mac will need something to occupy him during his recovery, something to keep him from getting bored and driving the people around him crazy.

To keep Mac from blowing up innocent household objects – the _stories_ Jack could tell.

Figures Jack would regain his trust in himself and the team while he’s thousands of miles away from them.

He takes a deep breath and mentally wills away the desire to sleep – he’ll catch a few hours of shuteye on the couch in his office later.

They’ve got work to do.

…

It’s late by the time Kelly gets home. Her cat Curie greets her with demands for dinner and a cuddle and Kelly’s all too happy to comply after the day she’s had. Amber is on nightshift and won’t be home for another few hours, so she settles in with a glass of wine and some quality reality TV.

Until the doorbell rings, that is.

It’s Andrew…at half past eleven at night.

“Andrew? What…what are you doing here?” Kelly mentally curses herself for not speaking to Matty yet. Between one project and another she’s just been so _busy_ and somehow her conversation with Andrew has entirely slipped her mind.

“Kelly, hey…can I come in for a moment? I know it’s late but…it really can’t wait until tomorrow.”

She considers slamming the door in his face and calling the police, but the thing is, she isn’t sure Andrew is here with any nefarious intentions and if he really just wants to talk…calling the police on him is going to make things very awkward at work tomorrow. Kelly opens the door wide enough to let him in and he steps past her with a smile.

She leads him into the kitchen.

“You want something to drink?” Andrew shakes his head before he comes to a halt and seems to reconsider.

“Maybe a glass of water?”

Kelly fills a glass with water and hands it to him. She’s very proud of the fact that her hands don’t shake at all when her skin briefly brushes his.

“Thanks.” There’s something in his eyes that she doesn’t like, something that makes her regret not having called the police earlier.

“Looks, Kells…I wanted to talk about what you said at the elevator…about Karen.” Kelly swallows nervously and takes a step back when she notices something about his appearance that she hadn’t noticed at the door.

There’s a tell-tale bulge at the waistband of his jeans, covered by his clothes. Kelly’s worked in the spy business long enough – she knows what a concealed gun looks like.

…

The Phoenix car comes to a screeching halt in front of the house. Riley and Sam are first out with Bozer following behind. Leanna is back at the APO, monitoring the op with Matty.

“Be careful, guys. We don’t know if Brown is armed and what he’s prepared to do,” Leanna cautions over the comms and the three of them look at each other for a moment in silent acknowledgement of their task ahead. When Bozer had told them that somehow Mac had managed to connect Brown to his brother, a fellow EOD tech from Afghanistan, while in a _coma_ …

Well, Riley hadn’t been as surprised as she probably should have been, it was Mac after all, Mac and his ginormous brain. Still, Brown may have been able to pull the wool over their eyes for a significant amount of time but he wasn’t all that smart when it came to his personal safety apparently, because Riley had managed to track him via his phone of all things.

From that moment, the game had been _on_.

Sam is about to press the doorbell when there’s a dull thud and then a female voice swearing from inside the house. Drawing her gun, she and Bozer put all their strength into breaking the door open. Riley looks down at her tablet. Brown hasn’t moved.

 _Bastard_.    

They make their way into the house, silently, all the lessons Mac and Jack and then later Sam and Desi had driven into their heads paying off. They come to a stunned halt in what Riley recognizes as the kitchen.

Sam holsters her gun with a snort.

Kelly is standing over the downed, groaning form of Andrew Brown, wielding a frying pan with a manic glint in her eyes.

“I’ve seen that movie. I’m _not_ going to die just ‘cause I let the killer into the house.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *shrugs* What can I say. I just love damsels in distress who save themselves.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things are winding down, Mac gets to talk to Jack, and Desi has excellent timing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may have noticed that there is now a chapter count. One more chapter and an epilogue and we're done people. Thank you for sticking with the story so far :) Also, I'm taking some liberties with the MacGyver set design. Just pretend that there's a couch big enough for three people in the War Room.
> 
> As always self-betaed. All mistakes are my own.

“How is she?” Bozer asks Riley as she walks into the War Room. They’re back at the Phoenix, waiting, while Sam and Matty interrogate Brown, and Kelly is being evaluated by the Psych department to see when she can make a statement. Bozer expects the answer to be pretty soon because she seemed rather determined earlier.  

Riley sits down next to Bozer, tilting slightly to the right, and leans against his shoulder. He wraps an arm around her.

“Surprisingly good for almost having been killed today.” She yawns and regards him with a shrewd look. “Where’s Leanna?”

“Gone home. Now that we caught Brown, she can take up that other assignment again – the one she pretty much abandoned after the attempt on Mac's life.”

“Bozer-“

“I know, I know. I promise I will talk to her as soon as we wrap things up.” Riley raises an eyebrow. “I _will_. Look – what happened to Mac…if it’s taught me anything, then that there are very few second chances in this line of work, and I don’t want to lose Leanna okay?” Riley smiles at him and nudges his shoulder.

“I’ll count on that. Seriously Boze, you two deserve to be happy.”  

Bozer is still grinning stupidly at her when Matty and Sam stride into the room, looking as tired as they all probably feel right now.

“Brown confessed everything,” Sam tells them while dropping into the seat next to them. Matty doesn’t sit down, but Bozer’s pretty sure she’s only still standing by sheer force of will.

Riley rights herself, voice eager and curious. “So what _did_ actually happen?”

Matty sighs and looks at Sam. They do that weird, non-verbal communication thing that all ex-CIA spooks seem to have perfected, or at least the ones Bozer knows because Matty and Jack do the same thing, using only eyebrows, facial twitches and the occasional hand gesture, and then Matty nods, and Sam smiles, and Bozer resolves to work on his Spy to English translation manual to spare future generations the work of having to figure it out all on their own.

“Turns out Brown had an older brother in Afghanistan who was in Mac’s unit,” Matty begins, “I haven’t managed to get my hands on the unredacted file yet, but the brother died in an incident Mac was involved in as well.”

“Did he start working for the Phoenix only to get revenge on Mac?” Riley asks, but Matty shakes her head.

“No. That was a coincidence which are rare in our line of work, but they _do_ happen occasionally. Of course, the fact that he already held a grudge made it easier for Kovacs to turn him.”

“Do we know how they managed to connect Jack and the task force to the Phoenix yet?” Bozer interrupts.

“No, but I’m scheduled to talk to Jack tomorrow. Let’s hope they made some headway on their end of the investigation.”

Matty sounds tired. They’ve had bad ops in the past, weeks where none of the team managed to get more than a couple of hours sleep at night, but the last few weeks have been on another level, and Bozer isn’t the only one who is about ready to drop where he sits.

Sam seems to realize how exhausted Matty is, too, and takes over for her, continuing with the rest of the story.

“Turns out Brown deliberately cultivated the relationship with Michael Hunter to divert our attention, and he did some serious digging into the background of several Phoenix employees. Karen Patterson was just the first where he found something to blackmail her with.” Sam falls back and leans to the side, resting against Riley, and Matty smiles at the three of them.

“Go home, people. Kelly is being kept in Medical over night, and she won’t make her statement until tomorrow anyway.”

Bozer frowns. “What about you, boss?”

“I’m going to try sorting out as much of this mess as I can tonight. The quicker we wrap this up, the quicker we can bring Mac home.”

Alright, while Bozer is all for bringing his best friend home as quickly as possible, he doesn’t like the implication in that statement. Bozer glances at Riley and Sam next to him and raises his eyebrows in a silent question.

See – he can speak Spy, too.

Riley and Sam nod at him, and Bozer turns back to Matty.

“And leave you here all alone? I don’t think so,” Bozer tells her with a grin, snuggling closer to Riley who tilts further sideways until she’s half-lying on Bozer’s chest, her feet resting in Sam’s lap. Matty shakes her head at them, and says something undoubtedly witty and sarcastic, but Bozer is already slipping away, sleep claiming him now that they’re finally able to rest.

…

The first few days after waking up are confusing for Mac. He’s pretty sure Desi is with him, sometimes he could swear that his dad is as well, but in the beginning Mac chalks that up to hallucinations, and the fact that he’s just woken up from being comatose. He becomes more lucid as the days pass, finally managing to hold a conversation without falling asleep in the middle of it.

He’s also becoming increasingly bored, despite Desi doing her very best to divert his attention. Mac has always been terrible at staying still and he hates nothing more than having his body betray him like this. Mac knows he’s got at least six months to a year of recovery ahead of him, and he dreads every single moment of it.

“Don’t even think about it,” Desi warns him from her chair beside his bed, and Mac hadn’t even realized she knew he wasn’t asleep anymore.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” May tries, but Desi clearly doesn't believe him, judging by her raised eyebrow. They’ve been working together for two years now, and Mac is sometimes still surprised how well they’ve come to know each other in that time.

“Yeah right.” Desi puts her book down and frowns at him. “You’re antsy as hell – I can almost feel you vibrating from over here.”

Mac tries to breathe evenly, tries to get rid of the urge to _move,_ to do something with his hands and divert his thoughts from his current situation, but…

Mac’s brain has always been his greatest asset and his greatest enemy at the same time. Desi _tries_ , and Mac is so incredibly grateful for everything she’s doing for him. He wouldn’t know what to do without her, but he can’t help himself, he just…

He wants Jack to be there. Mac just want _Jack_ , in whatever capacity he can have him, and he doesn’t even care how selfish that makes him, not right now. He managed the last two years with no more than video calls and the occasional visit, but the thought of going through the next few months without Jack…

Mac doesn’t even want to think about it.

“Hey,” Desi says, taking his hand into hers. He’s been clenching the sheets between his fingers while trying not to panic, but she’s apparently become very adept at reading his moods. He smiles at her, gratefully.

“I know this is pretty awful, Mac. Just – don’t forget that we’re here to have your back whenever you need it, okay?" Mac nods in response.

“Also-“ She looks towards the door which opens right that second, and reveals James MacGyver carrying a laptop.

“Hey, son. Here’s someone who wants to talk to you.” Desi arranges the bedside table and his dad places the laptop in front of Mac so he can see the screen. There’s…

“Hey, buddy. You lookin’ awfully tired for someone who’s been sleeping a whole of a lot more than he’s supposed to.”

 _“Jack.”_ Mac all but whispers, tears in his eyes. He doesn’t notice his dad and Desi leaving as quietly as possible, giving them some privacy, eyes only for the face of the man he hasn’t seen for far longer than Mac cares to think about.

 “You really gotta stop doing this to me, Mac.” Jack sounds choked up and Mac realizes that he’s not the only one trying not to cry. Jack looks awful, like he hasn’t slept in days and when he does, his sleep is interrupted by more than one familiar nightmare.

Mac hates the thought that this, him nearly being killed in his Jeep, is now haunting Jack in his sleep – that Jack actually had to _watch_ the footage of it happening.

“I try not to make it a habit,” Is all that comes out despite him trying to think of something more profound, but right now, all Mac can do is soak up the sight of Jack, even if Mac can’t touch him.

Mac touches the screen instead, fingers ghosting over the image of his partner, tracing Jack’s face.

Jack smiles. “How are you, kid? Desi told me some, but…”

“I’m – not _fine_ , but…I will be I think,” Mac answers hesitantly, trying to think of something that doesn’t include how shitty he really feels. He doesn’t want to distract Jack. Mac is pretty sure that Jack’s already blaming himself for what happened to him, he doesn’t want to put this on the other man, too. Mac can be strong as long as Jack is still out there hunting Kovacs.

“Bullshit,” Jack’s voice comes through the tinny speaker almost too soft for Mac to hear. “I know you, Mac. You’re trying not to hurt me, but I know when you’re lying to my face.” He looks at Mac, pleadingly. “Don’t lie to me Mac, not about this. However you’re feelin’ – it can’t be worse than what’s already in my head.”

Mac swallows. “Jack-“

“ _Please_ , Mac.”

And Mac – well, he can’t exactly deny Jack this, can he? If Jack needs Mac to be honest, then Mac is going to be honest.

“I’m feeling like shit, Jack,” Mac admits and laughs shakily. “I mean – I’m grateful that I’m awake and not _dead_ , and I know I took a pretty nasty hit to the head and should be grateful that there’s no permanent brain damage, but…”

“God, Mac. When I watched that footage I couldn’t-“

“I miss you,” Mac admits, interrupting whatever it was that Jack wanted to say. “I miss you and no matter what I do I can’t _stop_ missing you – I’m sorry.”

Jack smiles at him, and Mac wants to capture that smile and carry it around with him, to remind himself of Jack whenever he feels cold and alone.

“You don’t need to apologize for that, Mac. You _never_ need to apologize for that,” Jack tells him gently. “I miss you too, you know? Can’t seem to stop missing you either.” Jack chuckles. “Here I am, trying to cheer you up, and now _I’m_ getting all mopey on you.” He shakes his head, apparently amused at himself.

"So, tell me. Is there at least some decent food in that place they stored you away, partner? Hospital food’s pretty shitty, but the least they can do after everything, is make sure you get some decent chow.”

Mac grins, grateful for Jack’s attempt at levity. “Wouldn’t know, Jack. I’m not exactly allowed any solid food right now.”

They continue to banter for as long as Mac’s health lets them, and the last thing Mac sees that day is Jack’s soft smile as he falls asleep to the rumbling sound of his partner’s voice.

…

“Hey, how’s the kid?” Marco asks as Jack returns to the conference room where they’ve been making their way through the files of their last six months of operations. Marco is sitting at the table, a half-empty cup of shitty coffee next to his files. Eugenie greets Jack with a tired grin, absent-mindedly making her way through a slice of pizza. Jack’s stomach makes itself known, reminding him that all he’s had since that morning is an apple and enough coffee to eat through his stomach lining.

“There any of that left for me?” Jack asks while sitting down at the table. She nudges the rest of the pizza over to him, so he can grab a slice for himself. Jack shoots her a grateful smile.

“Where’s Patrick?” Jack asks, noticing that the last member of their little group is missing. Jack may have been reluctant to let the analyst come back to work this quickly, but so far it seems to help the man, taking his mind off the tragedy that befell his family.

“Stepped out for a moment,” Marco answers. “Think his brother-in-law was on the phone.”

“What?” Jack stops cold, putting down the slice he’s been about to bite into. “Repeat that for me, please.” It’s not a question, it’s an order and Marco visibly swallows at the sudden change in Jack’s voice.

“His brother-in-law called him?” Marco looks at Eugenie, but she shakes her head. She’s got no idea what’s up either.

“Did he _tell_ you that?” Jack asks, because he needs to be very, very sure about this. Marco nods.

“Fuck!” Jack all but throws his chair back and runs back the way he came, Marco and Eugenie hot on his heels. “Do you know where he went?”

“The roof I think. Dammit, Jack. What the hell is going on?” Jack dismisses the elevator in favour of taking the stairs. Better to navigate, and the elevator makes a very telling sound once it reaches the top.

“Patrick doesn’t _have_ a brother-in-law,” Jack tells them. “His sister was a goddamn widow.”

“Shit.”

They make their way upstairs and draw their guns, Jack taking point. Patrick is standing on the roof, phone limply hanging from his fingers. He raises his hands as soon as he sees them approaching, handing over the phone without protest.

“What the hell did you just do?” Jack asks, voice low and threatening. If Patrick’s done anything to endanger Mac and the team further, Jack won’t be responsible for his actions. Eugenie holsters her gun while Marco places a hand on Jack’s arm, trying to keep him from doing anything he might regret later.

Jack won't regret it.

Patrick looks down at his shoes, unable to meet Jack’s eyes. “I’m sorry boss. They threatened my family. I didn’t want to do it, but then they killed Becca and…” He sniffs, rubbing a hand over his face.

“What. Did. You. Do.” Jack says again.

Patrick looks up and tells him.

…

Desi is trying to find the nurse who promised her a map of the closest city two days ago. She needs to find an electronic store and get… _something_ before her partner pulls a Houdini and escapes through the second-story window. He may be unable to walk on his own right now, but Desi wouldn’t put it past Mac to build himself some contraption to get around that minor inconvenience. She could look up the city on her phone, but she much prefers the feel of something solid in her hands when navigating new places which she blames on Mac's influence and his sometimes weirdly anachronistic tastes.

Talking to Jack helped. Mac has been much calmer since then, settled where he’d been an anxious mess before. Desi is under no illusion that Mac wouldn’t very much like to have Jack by his side, which she doesn’t take personally. She knows that Mac loves her, as the grumpy over-protective sister she can be, but since her partner is very much in love with his partner, even though neither of them actually acknowledges it…

She has no idea how two people can be this smart and so incredibly oblivious at the same time. If Desi where the kind of person to get involved in other people’s love lives, she’d be tempted to do something about it.

Maybe she should talk to Riley. Desi rolls her eyes at herself – so much for not getting involved. She makes her way around the next corner and spots the person she’s been looking for coming out of an elevator.

“Miss Tran. What can I do for you?” Desi smiles at the woman, still not quite used to her current alias. It’s the one thing about her job as a spy she never really _got_ – working undercover on such a permanent basis. She can do it, no question, but she lacks Mac’s almost chameleon-like ability to slip into another skin, or Jack’s literal _decades_ of experience.

Desi very much knows herself and who she is, and while that can be an asset in the field, it doesn’t really lend itself to long-term deep cover.

Still, she’s doing this for her partner, so…

“About that map you offered me?” She reminds the other woman and watches a look of realization spread over her face.

“Of course, I almost forgot. I will bring it with me when I change your friend’s IV bag in half an hour?” Desi nods and makes her way back to Mac’s room, trying to think of something to keep Mac’s brain busy for a few hours. She walks past the nurse manning the station’s front desk, her partner’s room in sight when she notices that the door to the room has been left slightly open.

“Is the doctor back already?” Desi asks the nurse. They put Mac through the wringer earlier that day, testing for everything under the sun to determine if Mac was already strong enough to be operated on. Apparently just because he woke up doesn’t mean there isn’t still internal damage the doctors have to fix.

Mac seemed to expect it, but Desi had a few choice words for that little revelation.

“No. Just changing his IV bag.” Desi is already running by the time the woman finishes her sentence. She draws her gun, which she’s been allowed to carry because her alias is an Interpol agent, and throws herself against the door to Mac’s room, counting on the element of surprise to give her a precious few moments to get a read on the situation.

There’s a man standing over Mac, hands busy with the IV line. He turns around at Desi’s entrance into the room and before she can tell him to stop doing whatever it is he’s doing, something hits her from behind. Her gun goes flying across the room. Desi blocks the next punch from the second intruder who was hidden behind the door and kicks his legs out from under him. He goes down hard. A well-placed kick against his temple takes him out of the game. Desi doesn’t care if she killed him, she’s got other things to worry about.

The whole fight didn’t take more than a few seconds. Desi turns around just as Mac wakes up and starts struggling against the second guy who decided to abandon subtlety in favour of pressing a pillow down against Mac’s face.

Desi feels a surge of rage well up. If she had the time to think about she’d be surprised at the intensity of it. Or maybe not – Mac has a way of getting under your skin and Desi’s become _attached_.  

Two quick steps is enough to wrap her arms around the guy’s neck and, while he’s quite a bit taller than she is, he’s also pretty skinny without much muscle to speak of. He’s out in no time at all.

She lets him fall to the ground and looks at Mac who smiles at her, visibly shaken, but apparently mostly unharmed by the attempt on his life. She raises a questioning eyebrow and Mac gives her a thumbs-up.

Desi smiles back.      


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack's task force closes in on their target and there's a reunion - yes, that one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Almost done guys. The epilogue might take another month because I barely have time for anything that isn't related to uni at the moment. Also, the weather decided to settle somewhere between boiling hot and the outer circles of hell, so I'm honestly glad I managed to finish anything at all.
> 
> As always, self-betaed. All mistakes are my own.

“Mac is alright,” is the first thing Matty says as soon as her face appears on the screen in the task force’s version of a War Room. Jack closes his eyes in relief, allowing himself a moment to let go of the feeling of helplessness that’s been haunting him ever since they caught Patrick sending Mac and Desi’s location to Kovacs’ men.

“Told you your boy would be okay, Jack.” Marco pats his shoulder while Eugenie grins at him. Jack chuckles wetly, not caring about keeping up appearances. These people have had his back for the past two years, and they’ve already seen him at his worst.

Matty smiles at them. “Desi caught the men Kovacs sent before they could do any damage. One of them managed to survive the apprehension, and Jim oversaw his transport back to LA. He’s currently being interrogated by Sam, and from what I hear, he’s talking.”

“You thinking what I’m thinking, boss?” Jack asks her. Matty raises an eyebrow, but she’s clearly holding back a grin that tells Jack everything he needs to know. Matilda Webber is no idiot, and she’s clearly come to the same conclusion Jack and his team have.

“You’re thinking we’ve got them, that we managed to plug the hole in both the Phoenix’s network and the task force.”

“It makes sense,” Eugenie says. “Patrick had access to every file that got leaked, including your connection to LA, Jack. Not even Marco and I have clearance for all of that.”

Jack nods. “Yeah, and don’t think I’m not gonna have some choice words for the people responsible for that mess. _No one_ was supposed to know about that connection, Matty. I had two conditions for taking this job: I get to choose my replacement, and my ties back to LA don’t appear anywhere – no file, no handwritten note, not even a tiny little whisper in someone’s ear, and they managed to screw that up.”

“I know, Jack. Believe me, I know. And I promise you you’ll have the full backing of myself, Oversight, and the Phoenix on the issue. We’re going to find out who dropped the ball on this, and we’re going after them. But that’s going to have to wait until you’re back in LA.” Matty leans closer to her side of the screen, tapping at something out of their view.

“And that might be sooner than you expect.” Matty grins. “I’ve got a surprise for you, Jack. It should be arriving right about - now.”

And it does, because the universe clearly rearranges itself according to Matilda Webber’s wishes. The door to their command centre opens just as Matty finishes, and the last person Jack would have expected steps into the room, smiling grimly.

“Desi-“

“Hey, Jack.” She’s carrying a file which she hands over to Eugenie. “The guy who survived trying to kill Mac carried a personal phone with him – sloppy if you ask me. Riley managed to crack the code he was using to communicate with Kovacs’ men, and she sent a confirmation that the hit was a success.”

Her smile turns the kind of dangerous Jack hasn’t seen in a while. “She piggybacked the signal to a location in Eastern Europe. Matty confirmed with a local source: Kovacs is still there.”

Jack looks at the people in the room. They don’t have the time to recall the rest of the task force – if they want to take this chance before their window of opportunity closes, they’re going to have to do it with just the four of them and whatever support Matty can give them from home. Marco nods in silent agreement – whatever Jack decides, he’ll back that decision. Eugenie, too. She looks just about ready to go after Kovacs alone at this point.

Jack doesn’t have to ask Desi. Her expression tells him very clearly he better hurry this up or she won’t be responsible for her actions.

“Alright. Let’s go and get the bastard – this time for good.”

…

Mac hates waking up in the hospital – no matter how badly he’s injured. There’s something about the sterile atmosphere combined with the smell that just makes him want to leave as soon as possible. Unfortunately, this time it definitely won’t be up to him, considering he’s barely able to make it to the bathroom on his own – let alone leave his room.

“It’s about time you woke up my dear. I can only read so many of these magazines without wanting to claw my eyes out.” Mac opens his eyes to a well-known, but unexpected face. Desi said she’d make sure he had company, but this isn’t exactly the company he was expecting.

Doesn’t mean it’s not welcome, though.

“Kat. How’d Matty get you to come here? Shouldn’t you stay in LA for your treatments?” Mac asks, forgetting that he doesn’t officially know about the cancer. She huffs, but there’s a smile on her face.

“I should have known that you’d figure it out. I’ve finished the latest round. My doctor likely wouldn’t approve of me flying so soon after, but what he doesn’t know-“

Mac grins. “You’re playing hooky.”

“Yes, I am. When Matty told me you needed some company I jumped at the chance to get out of the city for a while – and to see how you are.” Kat looks at him questioningly.

“How _are_ you, Mac?” She asks. “And I don’t just mean the state of your injuries, I can see those for myself, but considering that you were nearly killed twice in a very short period of time, and your current partner is trying to help your former partner catch an international terrorist so he can come back home and maybe become your partner again-“

Mac frown. “When you put it like that-“

 _“Mac.”_ Mac knows that tone of voice – it’s specific to the people who know how to call him on his bullshit. Jack has it, Desi learned it, and apparently Kat acquired it as well while dealing with Mac.

“It’s just-“ Mac takes a deep breath before continuing because he’s embarrassingly close to tears right then. Kat wouldn’t judge him, but Mac isn’t entirely sure he could _stop_ crying once he starts.

“Jack’s been gone for two years, and the one thing he needed from me, I couldn’t give him. I didn’t stay _safe_ Kat.”

“It could be argued that your job isn’t exactly the safest anyway, Mac.”

Mac chuckles wryly. “I know that – _Jack_ knows that, but Jack is very good at…very good at pretending he can wrap me in bubble wrap and keep me far away from the life he used to live.”

“Dalton’s always been protective,” Kat says, but there’s something in her eyes that tells Mac she knows perfectly well what he’s trying to say. Mac struggles to find the words to accurately describe just why Jack’s tendency to keep Mac out of certain parts of Jack’s life frustrates him so much, but Kat takes pity on him.

“This wasn’t your fault, though. You had absolutely no part in this.” Mac shoots her a look.

“Fair enough. God knows, you and your team excel at taking on unwarranted guilt. But let’s talk about something else. I brought a chess board. You still owe me a game and I’m determined to at least get a draw out of you this time.”

“Kat – you’re a terrible chess player,” Mac reminds her. Not that it ever stopped her from challenging him to the odd game now and then. Kat shrugs and removes a small, portable chess kit from her bag.

She grins at him. “That’s what I want you to think.”

…

“Move in.” The three figures clad in TAC gear start moving on Jack’s command. He’s eyes up high, being the best shot amongst them, but he has complete trust in the people he’s just sent into the proverbial belly of the beast. Jack can just make out Tiberius Kovacs silhouette through the darkened window of the building his team is about to enter. He’s almost alone, only a handful of bodyguards with him.

It should be a cake walk, but Jack has been on too many seemingly easy ops that went to hell in a handbasket to relax just yet.

“Matty?” He asks through the comms, trusting her to alert him to any changes, but still needing to make sure.

“Satellite feed is still clear, Jack,” Riley answers him instead, and Jack can almost see her vibrate with tension, hands posed over her keyboard, staring at the screen.

Jack doesn’t want her there, doesn’t want her to see how this is going to end – what Jack’s going to have to do to finally be able to come home, but he hadn’t argued.

If almost loosing Mac to Kovacs has taught him anything, it’s that he can’t protect them from this world forever. Don’t get him wrong – Jack has no intention of ever returning to this kind of life again, not even if another Kovacs rears his head, but maybe it’s time he starts trusting the people he loves, trusts that they won’t turn away from his uglier side.

Jack turns his focus back on the building, concentrating on breathing steadily. The team breaches the room where Kovacs is hiding, flashes of gunfire, the door on Jack’s side opens and someone stumbles out.

It’s Kovacs.

Jack breathes out.

The figure collapses.

“Target down. I repeat – target down.”

It’s over.

…

Mac wakes up. It’s still dark, confusing him because it’s been a while since he’d woken before sunrise, his body demanding the rest to heal.

There’s someone sitting next to him. Mac has a brief moment of panic, remembering waking up to an unknown person trying to kill him not so long ago, but then a warm hand covers his own and the figure leans forward, far enough Mac can just make out a face in the dim light of the moon. His first instinct is to chalk it up to a dream, but-“

“Jack?”

“Hey, buddy.” Jack’s fingers tighten around his own and he smiles at Mac, a gentle thing, helplessly fond. Mac wants to hug him.

“What are you doing here?” Mac asks, wincing at how hoarse he sound, like he hasn’t used his voice in a while. And in a way he hasn’t – it’s the first time he’s talking to Jack in months. Maybe his voice needs to relearn how to speak to him, the same way Mac’s eyes are busy trying to relearn the lines and creases on that beloved face.

“It’s over, Mac,” Jack states and Mac doesn’t get it – until he does. 

“How?”

Jack shrugs. “Luck, Desi’s timing, Cage’s ability to get people to talk, Riley’s hacking and your brain apparently – at least that’s how Matty tells it. We’ll piece the whole thing together as soon as I get back to LA, but I wanted – no, I _needed_ to see you first.”

Mac swallows. There’s a whole lot Jack doesn’t say. Things they never talk about – that Mac isn’t actually sure are real sometimes. Still, Jack has always caught him when he jumped too far in the past, and Mac is just so tired of hiding his feelings.

“I love you,” Jack all but whispers into the silence between them before Mac can even start to think of a way to convey his feelings.

“I – what?” It’s not what he wants to say, but Mac’s been blown up, flown halfway around the world, and forgive him if he’s a bit slow on the uptake right now, even if he’s just possibly been handed everything he’s wanted for the past how many years on a silver platter.

Jack quirks an eyebrow. “I love you – no, I am _in_ love with you. I want you to understand that I don’t expect anything. I just needed to tell you, Mac because if nearly loosing you taught me anything, it’s that there are only so many second chances before time runs out.” He smiles at Mac, and his smile is too sad for someone currently pouring out his heart to the person they love.

“Come tomorrow, we can put my little confession in a box never to be heard again, but-“

“NO!” Mac blurts out. “I mean – I don’t want to put it away, Jack.” He can’t help but smile giddily, his brain finally catching up.

“Jack – I’m in love with you, too. Have been for a while now.”

Jack frowns, like he can’t believe what Mac is telling him. Mac resolves to do whatever is in his power to make sure Jack stops doubting himself like this.

“Mac-“

“When I was – you know, _comatose_ , I dreamed about you.” Jack looks slightly perplexed at Mac’s statement, and he should possibly add some context to that.

“ _Not_ like that, Jack. This time at least,” Mac adds and grins cheekily at Jack’s expression, caught somewhere between disbelief and _interest_. Mac definitely plans to follow up on that when he’s actually cleared again to do something about it, but for now-

“I don’t remember a lot of it, but what I _do_ remember is that my brain turned to _you_ when things got dicey, and I remember that I wasn’t even sure if I’d wake up again. That thing you said – about second chances?” Jack nods.

“That goes for me, too.”

And then Mac has the pleasure of watching as understanding slowly spreads across Jack’s face.

“Come here,” Mac tells him, tugging at Jack’s hand, giving into his desire to have Jack as close as possible.

Jack chuckles. “I don’t think your doctor is going to be happy if I climb into bed with you, Mac.”

“When have you ever cared about what other people think?” Mac asks, raising a challenging eyebrow. “Please?”

Jack’s eyes go soft at Mac’s question, and he leans down to untie his shoelaces and removes his boots.

“You sure this won’t hurt you?” Mac considers the question, but concludes that he should be fine as long as they’re careful enough.

“I’ll be fine.”

Jack sits down on the edge of the bed, carefully, and swings his legs up onto the mattress. With some careful maneuvering, they manage to fit themselves next to each other. Although, it would probably be more accurate to say that Jack keeps himself close enough to the edge of the bed, Mac’s slightly afraid he’s going to fall out sometime during the rest of the night. He rolls his eyes and tugs at Jack’s shirt until the other man is close enough, Mac can drape himself over Jack’s body as much as his injuries will allow. Jack carefully wraps an arm around Mac.

“Pretty forward of you sweetheart. Didn’t think you’d invite me into your bed before the first date," Jack teases, and Mac can hear the smile in his voice.

“You love it. Also I’m pretty sure every Bruce Willis marathon you ever invited me to counts as a date.”

“True.”

Mac falls asleep to the sound of Jack’s heartbeat.

…

It takes a few more weeks until Mac’s doctor declares him fit enough to return to LA. Jack stays with him, his initial debrief takes place via satellite, courtesy of Matilda Webber and, surprisingly, James MacGyver’s influence. After a few days of finding Jack asleep in Mac’s bed come morning, or in the chair next to him after the nights when Mac’s injuries _do_ prevent them from sleeping in the same bed, the nurses finally have enough, and Jack finds himself with an extra bed in the room all to himself.

He still climbs into Mac’s bed sometimes, mostly during the nights Mac is woken by nightmares, and having Jack close is the only thing keeping the dreams at bay.

Jack is still blessedly free of bad dreams, but he knows that once they’re back in LA and things have calmed down a bit, he’s probably going to have to deal with some pretty nasty nightmares himself. For now, he pours all his energy into making sure Mac can heal.

Desi joins them on the flight back, her knowing grin a welcome surprise when the plane first lands. Once Mac is settled and half-asleep again, Jack finds her reading in the back of the plane. He sits down next to her.

“You know – I never thought I’d see you getting attached again after the last time,” Jack begins. Never let it be said he can’t be blunt when the situation calls for it, and Desi has always appreciated people being straight with her instead of endlessly talking around a topic.

She puts down her book and throws him a look.

“Well, people change, Jack.” Desi glances at the sleeping Mac and her expression softens. “And your boy has a way of getting under your skin.”

Jack nods thoughtfully. “Sooo, I know you planned on hightailin’ it out of the city as soon as I came back, but…think you maybe might wanna stay on, continue watching Mac’s back, that sort of thing?”

“Jack, I will only say this once but you can pry this job out of my cold, dead hands.” She tells him and he grins a quick grin.

“I was already considering shared custody by the time this whole mess started,” Desi adds, ruefully and Jack chuckles.

“However,” she continues“, if you think for one moment that I won’t protect him from you as well if necessary you’re more delusional than I thought. Break his heart again and you’re toast, Dalton.”

Jack sobers at her words. Maybe two years ago he would have taken offense at getting a shovel talk, but now he’s just glad that there’s another person making sure Mac is safe and happy.

“If I do, I’ll hand myself over to you without protest, promise.” Desi nods and picks up her book again, dismissing him without words. Jack gets up and returns to Mac’s side, settling in next to his partner, letting the hum of the engine lull him into that state between wakefulness and sleep that won’t make him groggy once they reach LA, but will refresh him anyway.

He’s finally going home.

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The conversation between Desi and Jack was actually the first thing I wrote for the entire fic. Also, I seem to have a thing for Desi sort of giving Jack a shovel talk.


End file.
